Lower volta communities bicker over Lake

Agbeve, Sept. 5, GNA - Disagreement is raging between a group of river side communities and others up stream in South-Tongu and Dangme over access to a shallow portion of the Volta River said to be rich in fish and oysters.

The feuding communities are Amuto and Agekekope, on one hand and fishermen from Ada and Agbeve who charge the first villages of hostility and tampering with their nets in areas located in the South-Tongu area but close to Big Ada.


A bloody scene nearly occurred a fortnight ago when the youth of the two communities attempted destroying a drag net cast in the area by a group of fishermen from Ada.


Fishermen from Ada and other places think it is not right for people in Amuto and Agekekope to lay claim to portions of the River, demarcating it with sticks and denying the right of access to other fishermen for the collection of shell fish, fishing and even sailing through by boat.


Mr Narteh Dorkutso, a fisherman from Ada said the attitude of the two communities was provocative and might lead to major confrontation some day.


Speaking on condition of anonymity, an angry fisherman from Agbeve said the fact that traders and trappers of oysters heaped their catch in that portion of the River, erect sticks among them for easy location and to prevent them from moving away could not justify preventing others the right of use.

He said the area was a rich oyster zone, shallow and easy reach for women and children who found it difficult to go deeper into the river to collect shellfish and could not be barred to other communities in the area.


Oysters once collected from other places and heaped at a point in a river with a single stick erected among them served as a technology that prevents them from escaping escape.


Mr James Kini, a resident of Agbeve, speaking to the GNA defended the stand of fishermen from Amuto and Agekekope because roaming fisherman who operated in those waters often removed markings erected on oyster collections resulting in squabbles over ownership. He alleged that they (visiting fishermen) sometimes stole the oysters as well as fish stocked in special fish traps in the river waiting for market days.


Mr Kini accused fishermen from Ada in particular of using nets banned for lake fishing thereby trapping fingerlings.