Accra, April 06, GNA – Mr Richster Nii Amarh Amarfio, Secretary of the Ghana Tuna Association, has called on government to consider the establishment of a training school to build the capacity of value-chain actors in the fishery sector.
He said such an institution would provide knowledge, skills, competencies and certification to locals to manage the sector.
“In the Tuna sector, hundred per cent of the Captains are Koreans, and it’s because we don’t have a single Ghanaian fishery Captain who can man any of our tuna fishing vessels and it’s a fact. For one to take up this role, you need competencies, skills, and certification to be able to man a tuna fishing vessel per international standards.
“And we don’t have any training school that is training anybody to be a skipper of any of the fishing vessels, even Engineers, so we don’t even have a fishing officer who is a Ghanaian to say we don’t want to rely on foreigners again,” he stated.
Mr Amarfio made the call in an interview with the Ghana News Agency when the Centre for Maritime, Law and Security (CEMLAWS) Africa, with funding from the Bloomberg Philanthropies under its “Vibrant Oceans Initiative,” launched a fisheries transparency project titled: “Enhancing Transparency in the Fisheries Sectors of Benin, Cote d’Ivoire, Ghana and Senegal,” in Accra.
The comment followed a long-standing grief by stakeholders over how foreigners had taken over management of fishing vessels in the country, with Ghanaians often working as their subordinates and sometimes, treated unprofessionally.
The Association’s Secretary said fisheries could be a major economic backbone for the nation if well managed.
To properly manage the fisheries sector, Mr Amarfio suggested that the capacity of those at the operational level (fishermen), regulatory level, academia and research be well built.
“We have a trial and error approach to managing our fisheries sector. We do closed season to see if it works without reporting it. Then we say, let’s add one more month to the closed season, or move it from November to January or February to harvest more.
“Those are not fisheries management. Fisheries managements are clear scientific processes. When you make an input, you know what to expect as an output,” he said.
Mr Amarfio said the fishery sector was not to be managed as a business but a natural resource sector and advised that government and stakeholders worked towards combatting water pollution nationwide.
He bemoaned the lack of transparency in the fishery sector, saying: “There exists the Fisheries Development Fund but we in the sector don’t even know how the fund is used to develop the sector though they increased license fees…”
He suggested that recommendations made at the launch by CEMLAWS and stakeholders be given to political parties to be considered in their manifestoes, so they could be held accountable if they overlooked them when in power.
GNA