National Canoe Fishermen Council urges government to invest in detective devices

Mike Abaka-Edu, the Acting Secretary of the Western Regional Branch of the Ghana National Canoe Fishermen Council, has urged the government to equip officers of the Fisheries Commission with detective devices to promote fish safety in the sea.

The detective devices, according to him, would help the officers to test and arrest fishermen who caught fishes using various chemicals at the Landing beaches across the country.

Abakah-Edu, who spoke to the Ghana News Agency in an interview, said such harmful sea practices over the years, had resulted in the massive decline of marine resources and gradually making the sea “barren”.

He was not happy that fishers, despite the numerous education, continued to use DDT, dynamite and other harmful substances to fish and thereby putting the health of consumers at risk of diseases.

“It is rumored that fishers use chemicals such as detergent, formalin and other risky behaviours to ensure bumper catch or preserve such catch at sea”.

The Acting Regional Secretary praised stakeholders for the introduction of the canoe moratorium of three years, which sought to ban new canoes at sea as a measure to control catch and resuscitate the ocean.

The fisheries ecological Biomass, he said, could effectively manage between 9,000 and 10,000 as against the current data of 12,175 which called for swift action to salvage the sea from “collapse”.

He expressed the hope that the three-year ban of new entrants on sea would be strictly complied with by all stakeholders to achieve the needed results.

Abakah-Edu also advised fishers to voluntarily obey all measures put in place by the Fisheries Commission to help sustain the blue economy for the sake of posterity.