Navy Officers Chase Fishermen

Some fishermen in the ancient fishing town of Axim in the Western Region claim they were frightened by the presence of well-armed personnel of the Ghana Navy and the police who went to the various beaches in the area yesterday.

The security personnel, who are members of the enforcement unit of the Fisheries Commission, were at the beaches to arrest recalcitrant fishermen who were said to have flouted fishing regulations and seize some illegal nets and monofilament nets being used by some of them.

The fishermen, who claimed they were not aware of the operation of the unit, started running helter-skelter upon seeing the security personnel, leaving their canoes and other fishing gears behind.

“We have to run because we did not know the mission of the security personnel. But it was later that we learnt that they were there to seize illegal fishing gears,” one of them told DAILY GUIDE.

About 45 fishing nets were confiscated by the unit.

The Chief Fisherman at Apewosika, a suburb of Axim, Uncle Kojo Panyin, was very furious that the personnel of the unit did not inform him, as the chief fisherman, of their intended action.

“In fact, I think they should have told me something. I was at home when my people ran to me to inquire why the navy and the police were at the beach. I did not know but later I learnt they were there to seize illegal fishing gears,” he added.

He asserted that even though the fishermen had been warned to stop the usage of monofilament and other illegal nets for fishing, the authorities concerned had failed to supply the fisher folks with the legal fishing gears and nets.

Expatiating on the reasons behind the action of the unit in an interview, Daniel Awuku Nyanteh, Fishing Protection Officer, noted that in 2010, the regulation not to use illegal nets for fishing was added to the Fisheries Act 625 of 2002 that established the unit.

He pointed out that since then his outfit had been sensitizing the fishermen on the need to avoid using prohibited methods of fishing, particularly, the use of monofilament nets.

He explained that the monofilament nets posed serious threat to the marine environment as they trapped the fingerlings and depleted the sea of fishes.

“Look now we are in the season, but people are crying because they are not getting fish to store. They say ‘the sea never dries’ but the sea can dry when we don’t practise responsible fishing,” Mr Daniel Awuku Nyanteh added.

He gave an assurance that the team would continue to storm the beaches unannounced to enforce the law as part of measures to eradicate illegal methods of fishing.