Ghana Ports and Harbour Authority salvages a sunken trawler

Mr Ben Owusu -Mensah, Director-General of the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority, (GPHA), has said that the removal of a sunken fishing trawler from the Tema Fishing Harbour, which began a week ago, could cost about 547 million cedis (69,000 dollars).

Meanwhile Cactus Enterprise, owners of MV Bani, which sunk in February last year, who are expected to bear the cost of salvaging the vessel has deposited 100 million cedis to GPHA.

Mr Owusu- Mensah, who spoke to the Ghana News Agency on Friday at the operations site at the fishing harbour said the vessel was laid up about three years ago. It was among the six laid up vessels that had been earmarked to be dumped at high seas, and when it started taking in water, it sunk in no time at where she had been tied.

The Director-General said GPHA had engaged the services of Makkino Engineering, a diving company in Ghana to undertake the salvaging exercise. Mr Owusu-Mensah explained that when a vessel sinks at the port, it causes a problem to navigation of other vessels and blocks berthing space, thus creating economic loss to GPHA.