Mrs. Mavis Hawa Koomson, the Minister for Fisheries and Aquaculture Development, has asked fishers to carefully guard the sea’s properties to continually provide the needed financial and livelihood support.
She has, therefore, tasked all fishers to be each other’s watch man and report the wrong of each other to the appropriate authority for action to salvage the sea from its current state.
Over the years, wrong use of fishing gear, light fishing, application of chemicals such as DDT, Blue, Omo, formalin and dynamite by fishermen had not only increased health risks among consumers of these products but also depleted the sea resources and thus making it seemingly infertile.
This act of cruelty to the sea by fishers, according to the Minister was making the sea gradually “barren” and may very soon give up on the act of reproduction with a dire consequence on humanity.
The Minister for Fisheries was speaking to a segment of the over 980 canoe fishermen operating in the Aboadze Community in the Shama District of the Western.
The visit was to encourage them to patiently observe the close season, and supplied them with relief items: rice, oil, pans and wire mesh to aid in their leave of the sea.
Mrs. Koomson said the Ministry was in talk with some organizations to train people in the fishing value chain with alternative livelihoods projects and also conduct health screening for them.
On premix fuel, the Minister tasked them to look for a land for the construction of the fuel station so that the commodity would be dispensed near shore to avoid hoarding and other ill practices that had characterized the premix regime which had significantly increased the prices of fish at the shore in recent times.