It is another busy Friday afternoon at Makola Market. Gifty Gyan, a civil servant, is making a quick stop to buy fish before heading home for the weekend.

She picks up smoked mackerel and a piece of tuna, smells them, negotiates briefly with the vendor, and places them in her tote bag.

But Gifty does not ask where the fish was caught, who caught it, or whether the vessel that hauled it from the sea was even operating legally.

She has never had a reason to.

Perhaps she should.

“All I want is freshly smoked fish at a moderate price,” Gifty, a mother of five, tells the Ghana News Agency (GNA) at the market.

She represents millions of Ghanaian consumers who rarely think about the journey fish takes before reaching their plates, how it was harvested, handled, or whether it was caught sustainably.

That, however, may soon change.

What you do not know about your fish

Ghana is a fish-eating nation. Per capita fish consumption is among the highest in sub-Saharan Africa, with six out of every 10 households in the country consuming fish as a source of animal protein.

Mackerel and tuna on the grill, fried barracuda in soups and stews — fish is not a luxury in Ghana.

It is a staple.

Papa Yaw Atobrah, a fisheries expert with more than 40 years of experience in the sector, says the journey from net to dinner plate passes through a system most consumers know little about.

“Who is allowed to fish in Ghana’s waters, how much they are permitted to catch, whether they are actually following the rules, and whether the fish arriving at markets today will still be there for the next generation,” he told GNA.

“It is a matter of accountability. Policymakers are holding these resources in trust for the people. Knowing the fish stocks and the number of vessels exploring them is how we know they are doing their job.”

That accountability and transparency gap is exactly what the Fisheries Transparency Initiative (FiTI) was designed to close.

An intent, a commitment, a multi-stakeholder group

Ghana formally committed to the FiTI, a global multi-stakeholder initiative aimed at enhancing the sustainability of marine fisheries, when then-Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture Development (MoFAD), Hawa Koomson, presented the country’s endorsement to the FiTI Board in Rome in 2024.

The current Minister for Fisheries and Aquaculture, Emelia Arthur, later oversaw the formal signing and established a National Multi-Stakeholder Group (NMSG) to translate the commitment into action.

A transparency assessment conducted in Ghana revealed significant volumes of fisheries information existed within government but remained scattered and inaccessible to the public.

The commitment matters, says Dr Godfred Ameyaw Asiedu, FiTI Regional Coordinator for Anglophone Africa.

FiTI, he says, requires governments to publish information on who holds fishing licences, vessels operating in Ghana’s waters, the quantity of fish caught and reported, and how enforcement against illegal fishing is being carried out.

“The idea is simple: if citizens have access to the data and information, they can hold the system accountable,” Dr Ameyaw told GNA.

However, inadequate funding remains a major challenge to the effective operation of the NMSG.

A FiTI Lead Ministry and a National Focal Point have been appointed to oversee NMSG activities. Terms of Reference (ToR) have been approved, and a workplan for the NMSG has been developed.

“We could have done more if we had adequate funding,” Dr Ameyaw acknowledged.

“The NMSG has supported the ministry to develop an online Fisheries Information System, which was launched in June this year during the Our Oceans Conference in Kenya. This will enable the public and people globally to access key information on Ghana’s marine fisheries sector.”

For consumers waiting at the fish counter, however, that transparency has yet to arrive.

Why consumers should care

The connection between fisheries governance and the price and availability of fish at the market is direct, even if it remains invisible to many consumers.

Ghana and other developing countries are losing billions of dollars due to Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated (IUU) fishing, which drains revenue through illicit financial flows, according to a new study by the Financial Transparency Coalition (FTC), a global network of organisations working on illicit financial flows.

Ernest Arthur, a fisherman in Takoradi, told GNA that illegal fishing practices have long-term consequences.

“When industrial vessels fish in unlicensed zones, it means entering waters where they have no permission to operate. Using small nets means catching young fish before they have grown and reproduced, robbing the ocean of its next generation,” he said.

“Fishing with light means using bright lights at night to attract and scoop up massive quantities of fish in one go. Falsifying records means writing lies in official logbooks to hide all of the above. Together, these practices strip the ocean faster than it can recover.”

Fish from such practices eventually reaches the same markets where legally caught fish are sold, he noted.

The result is higher prices, smaller fish and species that gradually disappear from market displays.

The economics are straightforward, even if the consequences are not. A vessel that ignores fishing rules or uses illegal methods has lower operating costs than one that follows regulations.

Those savings are passed down the supply chain, eventually affecting the price Gifty pays at Makola Market.

But the real cost is deferred, not eliminated.

Every undersized fish sold today is a fish that never reproduced and a gap in tomorrow’s catch that no discount can fill, says Dr Andrews Agyekumhene, a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Marine and Fisheries Sciences at the University of Ghana.

“Consumers feel the effects of illegal fishing every time they go to market,” he said.

“They just do not connect the dots between a missing species and what is happening offshore.”

He said Ghana’s fish catch has declined significantly over recent decades.

The sardinella, which is locally used to prepare “Fante Fante”, a delicacy popular along the Central and Western coasts, was once the cheapest and most abundant fish in coastal markets but has become increasingly scarce and expensive.

For every 10 sardinella that existed in Ghana’s waters three decades ago, only two remain today, according to the Environmental Justice Foundation, with the FAO warning that the fishery is close to total collapse.

What was once food for everyone is increasingly becoming food for those who can afford it, he noted.

“What we are seeing now with sardinella is the cost of doing nothing,” Dr Agyekumhene said. “FiTI is not about making fish expensive. It is about making sure there is still fish to buy.”

The information the public cannot access

The FiTI Standard requires available fisheries data and information to be published and made accessible and understandable to ordinary citizens, rather than being buried in government databases or presented in technical language.

Philip Prah, an official of Friends of the Nation, a local non-governmental organisation, says Ghana’s progress has been uneven.

He said key datasets, including a comprehensive public vessel registry showing who is licensed to fish in Ghanaian waters, have not been published in a form that meets FiTI’s transparency standards.

“That means that right now, a curious consumer, a market trader, a journalist, or a concerned parent cannot easily look up whether the company supplying fish to their local market holds a valid licence, whether it has been flagged for violations, or how its reported catches compare to what is arriving at the docks,” he said.

Mr Prah, who is a member of the NMSG, said previous assessments showed that some of the information exists but is not accessible.

“Even if it becomes available, government must support the NMSG to create awareness among the public,” he added.

He suggested that funds from vessel fines could be used to support the NMSG.

A lesson from Seychelles

The Seychelles has earned recognition as the first country to achieve FiTI compliance status.

Nathaniel Morel, Programme Development Officer at the Blue Economy Department of the Ministry of Fisheries, Agriculture and Blue Economy, said the achievement was a result of making information accessible.

“The compliance status means that we have most of our information out there on websites. Technical information, reports and activities have been broken down and disseminated on social media, through the media, short videos and other forms of content to meet the needs of different groups,” she told GNA.

“For instance, there are reels that answer questions like how many people work in the fisheries sector, how big the fish should be and how many vessels are in the sector. These are shared for everyone.”

She said government funding helped Seychelles’ NMSG undertake its work and engage stakeholders, including consumers, fishermen, processors and vessel owners.

Ghana’s funding puzzle

The Minister for Fisheries and Aquaculture, Emelia Arthur, told GNA that government recognises the importance of the sector and that part of the ministry’s goods and services budget would be made available to support NMSG activities.

“We are also working with Norway to revive a funding mechanism called the Fish Development Fund, which has expired, to support some NMSG operations. When we said reset, reset also means transparency,” she said.

However, Dr Agyekumhene expressed concern over the absence of a clear timeline.

The uncomfortable question hanging over Ghana’s FiTI commitment is whether transparency will, at least initially, affect the very consumers it is meant to protect.

Stricter enforcement of licensing could reduce the volume of fish reaching markets in the short term, potentially pushing prices upward.

But experts argue that the alternative is already playing out.

The sardinella was once the cheapest fish in the market. It is disappearing precisely because no one was monitoring catches for decades.

Imagine school canteens, Gifty and other consumers being able to verify that the fish they buy comes from a legally operating supplier.

The stake on the plate

Back at Makola Market, Gifty Gyan wraps her mackerel in newspaper before heading home.

Asked whether she would want more information about where her fish comes from, she pauses.

“If it means my children will still have fish to eat in 10 years, then yes,” she says.

“Tell me what I need to know.”

For Dr Agyekumhene, Gifty’s response captures the purpose of Ghana’s commitment to implement the FiTI Standard.

He said transparency was not only about publishing data but ensuring that information helped citizens understand and participate in decisions affecting a resource that supports livelihoods, food security and the economy.

The country’s fisherfolk, markets, dinner tables and ultimately its food security are waiting for that promise to be fulfilled.