Ghana is said to be losing US$50 million annually in terms of revenue from the activities of illegal fishing.
This was disclosed by Mr Kofi Agbogah, a member of the Technical Committee of the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture.
Consequently, Mr Agbogah is calling for an immediate end to ‘Saiko’, an illegal fishing method in practice mostly by the Chinese in Elmina, so as to prevent lose of revenue as well as the shortage of fish in the country.
He adds that if this is allowed to continue, the country will be hit with a serious shortage of fish which will take about 40 years to resolve.
Fisheries sector contribution to GDP
Speaking on ‘Upfront’ on the Joy News channel on Wednesday, Mr Agbogah adds that the situations is dire to the extent that it is affecting the growth of the fisheries sector in the country.
He remarked that in the past, specifically around 1998, the fisheries sector accounted for about 4.5 per of the total Gross Domestic Product (GDP) to the country.
However, he added, growth in the sector has been declining over the years, adding that the sector now contributes to between one to 0.9 per cent to GDP.
“In 1998/99 to 2000, Ghana was self sufficient in our fish harvest. Today we are importing greater than 60 per cent of the fish that we eat”, he said.
Currency depreciation
Importation of fish, he explained, was contributing to the depreciation of the country’s currency because the country will require dollars to engage in such transactions.
‘If we want to arrest the cedi, then these are some of the things that we should be looking at to ensure that these leakage in our system is done away with”, he added.
Saiko fishing
Saiko, a Transhipment, is an illegal mode of fishing where trawlers stay put on the sea, catch fish meant for small-scale fishermen and sell them to cannon fishermen out at sea.
This practice, is very pervasive on the Elmina fishing harbour, in the central Region of Ghana.
However, the laws of Ghana abhors such mode of fishing on its waters.
What the law says on illegal fishing
For instance, section 132 of the Act 625 (Act 2000) clearly states how fishing vessels should operate on the country’s fishing waters.
“Unless authorised in writing by the commission [fisheries commission] , no fishing vessel shall be used for transhipment of fish in the fishery waters without the supervision of an authorised officer or under such arrangement or condition as may be approved in advance by the commission”.
What this means is that one needs prior authorisation before moving fish from one vessel to the other.
In addition to this, section 52, 53 and 55 of the same Act says that nobody can go on the waters to fish without license.
But in October 2018, the President of the Ghana Industrial Trawlers association (GITA), Mr Ampratwum Boateng, disclosed to the media that Saiko has now been accepted as a legal activity.
This was after a close-door meeting held between the fisherman in the Central Region and leaders of the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture, the Fisheries Commission and China Vessel owners at the Central Regional coordinating council ( RCC).
Threat to national security
But Mr Agbogah maintains that Saiko is a serious threat which must be tackled head-on.
He says the amount of fish in one Saiko boat is equal to 450 trips of an ordinary canoe fishermen going to sea.
This means that an ordinary fisherman will have go on fishing trips 450 times to match a that of a single Saiko boat.
Mr Agbogah further added that many people in Ghana depend heavily on the fisheries sector for their nutritional value and so the Ministry must ensure that activities of Saiko is controlled.
“It is something that adds to the nutrition of the nation. When we lose it then we are losing our nutritional security, we are also losing our food security and it will affect national security”, he warned.
