Date of Award
1985
Document Type
Dissertation
Degree Name
Master of Science in Maritime Affairs
Specialization
Maritime Safety & Environmental Administration
Campus
Malmö, Sweden
Country
Malawi
First Advisor
Balmer, T.F.
Abstract
Due to change of times and advancement of technology in shipping generally, a research programme has been made to identify factors which may influence the need to update the Inland Shipping Act of Malawi. Since active shipping was established in the middle of the 19th Century on lake Malawi an attempt was made to establish a shipping Act to control shipping and this Act was drawn from the British Merchant Shipping Act 1894. This extract has existed until now and very few changes have been made to it. Since this inland shipping Act was established a number of developments to shipping have taken place, especially in the field of safety of ships, such developments are like increase in ship sizes, high technological developments in ship navigation and propulsion and introduction of International Regulations to control maritime activities. These developments have influenced the creation of a bigger Maritime Administration and the need to update the existing shipping Act. The application of the research is presented as a guideline for identifying matters that may need to change. In this paper the main structure of the existing inland shipping Act is clearly and comprehensively presented, problems faced regarding safety of vessels on lake Malawi are discussed and proposals leading to solutions are given. It is my opinion that all parties involved in shipping activities on a larger or smaller scale will find this paper useful. Due to lack of written material on shipping in Malawi I wish to advise the reader that most of the information contained in this paper was obtained through observation and interviews.