General News of Tuesday, 24 August 2021
Source: www.ghanaweb.com
2021-08-24
The minister recently led a symbolic closing of the sea to put fishing activities on hold
• Many communities still engage in illegal fishing
• Mavis Hawa Koomson is on a drive to end this practice
• She has vowed not to supply premix fuel to areas identified as such
Communities where illegal fishing activities go on will soon not be given premix fuel to support their business, the Minister for Fisheries and Aquaculture has warned.
According to Mavis Hawa Koomson, this is a new measure she has instituted to ensure that the fishermen don’t continue to destroy the aquatic life.
She explained, while on Ekosiisen on Asempa FM and monitored by GhanaWeb, that this is expected to support their efforts at checking the overall activities of fishing along Ghana’s coastlines.
“Monitoring is our biggest problem now because we are working with the Police Monitoring Unit and the Navy combined but right now, they are in the Central region, Western and then parts of the Volta region and so I have discussed with them the need to create some of the offices within the Central region: about three places – we know all the places they undertake all those illegalities.
“So, if we are able to send the police and the Navy to these points, it will help us. Also, I am introducing a new measure such that any community where I hear that they are engaged in illegal activities, we’ll stop giving you premix fuel because if we don’t stop it, it will be problematic,” she said in Twi.
Mavis Hawa Koomson also stated that there are plans in place to have another closed season – a period where fishing is banned, so as to restore the ocean and its aquatic life.
