The Zanzibar Ministry of Communications and Works each year checks on the seaworthiness of private dhows prior to issuing them with new licences to carry passengers and cargo but does not demand from the operators the fixing of radio equipment on the dhows as the sets are not available in Tanzania.

The Deputy Minister of Communications and Works, Ndugu Mohamed Abdallah Khamis said the Ministry’s engineers also check on the condition of life jackets and life buoys.
Ndugu Khamis was answering the Representative from Mwembe Makumbi, Ndugu Hamadi Ali Fadau who had demanded in his question that the installation of radio equipment on dhows be made mandatory so that their skippers could call for help in case of problems. ~ Ndugu Fadau cited a string of cases in which lives were lost because dhows facing problems could not call for help from either nearby ships or the Zanzibar port – Daily News