Fisheries Commission to ban unregistered canoe owners from fishing

The Fisheries Commission (FC) has advised the Ghana National Canoe Fishermen Council (GNCFC) to impress upon their members to register their canoes before January 2021.

According to the Commission, no unregistered canoe would be allowed to register after the stipulated time period.

The move is to help streamline operations in the fishing industry.

Madam Rebecca Sackey-Mensah, an officer with the Marine Fisheries Management Division in Accra, said this when she addressed canoe owners and other stakeholders in the fishing industry.

This was part of the Western Regional Fisher to Fisher dialogue held at Agona-Nkwanta in the Ahanta-West municipality.

The meeting, which had earlier taken place in Sekondi and Axim, was under the auspices of the GNCFC and the Fisheries Commission; and funded by USAID.

Madam Sackey-Mensah warned canoe fishers that with effect from 1 January 2021, no unregistered canoe would be allowed to go to sea.

She said 15,000 canoes have so far been registered nation-wide with 3,600 out of 4562 registered in the Western Region.

She urged Chief Fishermen in the Western Region to ensure that their members provided accurate data to be able to access their cards.

She said the card would deal with issues affecting the supply and acquisition of pre-mix fuel and cautioned that those who have not registered their cards would not be supplied with pre-mix fuel.

Madam Sackey-Mensah also urged canoe owners to furnish the Chief fishermen with vital information to complete their cards.

Nana Emmanuel Odwire, the Western Regional Chairman of the GNCFC, advised Canoe owners to register with the council to fight the common cause.

He asked the Council to take contributions and raise funds to organize programmes instead of relying on Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) alone for sponsorship.

Prof Godfrey Baidoo-Tsibu, the Western Regional Director of Fisheries, called on fishermen to use the approved processes to catch their stocks.

He said the Commission received reports of two serious cases of Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) two weeks ago which resulted in the death of one and the amputation of one arm of the other.