The Director-General of the Ghana Maritime Authority, Kwame Owusu has disclosed that in line with the Authority’s mandate of overseeing the affairs of the waters of the country, it will soon take delivery of 7 patrol search and rescue vessels.

According to him, the vessels which would be acquired through internally generated funds will arrive on 28th November, 2018 to boost the operations of the Ghana Maritime Authority.

“Some vessels are here, and on the 28th of November we would acquire, with internally generated funds, 7 patrol and search and rescue vessels.”

Kwame Owusu who made this known during a press conference to set the records straight following some allegations that were levelled against him, revealed those allegations should be treated with contempt that it deserves.

“I am alleged to have acquired 2 Million of two pieces of land in East Legon, that must be quite a sizeable property,” he exclaimed.

He stated that the Vessel Traffic Information Management System, which is a critical equipment that gives access to the Ghana Navy to oversee all waters of Ghana has been serviced to boost their operations.

“When we took over this organisation, we have had what we call our surveillance equipment and for you, media people especially ‘EYE ON PORT’ you know the BTMIS, this in 2014 that it was commissioned, it has never been serviced, we had problems, we couldn’t see things, the Navy was complaining, when I took over, it didn’t take me 3 months,” he stated.

He said the Authority has been removing tree stumps in the Volta Lake to minimise the spate of accidents on the lake as part of its corporate social responsibilities.

“Our first phase alone, is about four million which as part of our social responsibility that we have paid cash down has been removed and we planning different phases,”

Kwame Owusu said the authority was able to generate a total revenue of 100million Ghana cedis in 2017 and made a profit of 43million Ghana cedis same year for the first time.

He revealed that the Authority will for the first time pay 8million cedis dividend to the government.