Director General of the Ghana Maritime Authority (GMA), Thomas Kofi Alonsi says government is putting in place adequate measures to tackle the increasing spate of piracy attacks in the Gulf of Guinea,
The Gulf of Guinea over the years has become a global epicenter for piracy according to the International Maritime Bureau’s (IMB) latest global piracy report.
In the first three months of 2021, the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre (PRC) reported 38 piracy incidents, 33 vessels boarded, two attempted attacks, two vessels fired upon, and one vessel hijacked with the kidnapping of 40 crew members.
However, providing updates on the measures rolled out by government to tackle the menace at the Minister’s Press Briefing in Accra Mr. Alonsi said government has made significant investment in the maritime sector such as the acquisition of pirate boats for surveillance to patrol the country’s high seas to ward off pirates.
He said the Authority had acquired nine speed boats for patrols, search and rescue purposes on the country’s territorial waters and exclusive economic zones.
The speed vessels, Mr Alonsi explained, were being managed and operated under the GMA’s Vessel Traffic Management Information System, which enhanced electronic surveillance and monitoring of the country’s sea waters and oil fields.
Mr Alonsi said: “Before 2017 there was zero speed boat and so the new acquisition by the Authority had really increased awareness and safety of Ghana’s maritime domain”.
He said despite this investment, the authority itself has embarked on several interventions to deal with the menace.
This the GMA boss said “the authority together with other coastal states have come together to find ways and means of curtailing the incidence of piracy within our territorial waters.”
One of such measures he said is an arrangement by all West African coastal states through the ECOWAS Maritime Security Architecture Stakeholders Meeting in Cotonou, Benin Republic to bring maritime security and safety to the Gulf of Guinea.
Additionally, he said the GMA has held consultative meetings with the Naval Command on joint patrols on Ghana’s territorial waters and subsequently engaged various Maritime Security Stakeholders, all in a bid to deal with the incidents of piracy in the Gulf of Guinea.
Mr Alonsi said GMA has so far removed over 21,000 submerged tree stumps along the various routes on the Volta Lake between 2018 and 2020.
The exercise has greatly helped in reducing the frequent marine accidents that claimed hundreds of lives and destroyed property worth thousands of Cedis on the Volta Lake.
According to him, the exercise had enhanced safety of movement and boosted economic activities on the Volta Lake.
He said for instance, 2,200 tree stumps were removed along Dambai-Dodoikope route, 3,550 along Yeji-Makango route, 4,800 from Yeji to Awujakope, 10,490 along Tupangya-Tumpunjah-Kudorkope-Njare route, which is a 30-kilometre stretch.
Mr Alonsi explained that the exercise was still ongoing and could not provide the cost of the project.
The GMA Boss also identified some human elements such as overloading of boats and drunkenness by some boat operators as some of the causes of marine accidents and assured of its readiness to deploy marine inspectors on the boats to arrest and sanction offenders in order to serve as a deterrent to others.
Mr Alonsi announced that the Authority had also acquired trash skimmers to help manage the insanitary conditions on the country’s coastline both onshore and offshore as well as for removal of weeds on water bodies.
Source: John APPIAH || The Finder, Accra