Ghana missing out on US$23.7 million Fishing Licensing Fees – CEMLAWS reveals

The Convenor for Fisheries Alliance, Mr. Kyei Kwodwo Yamoah, has revealed that, a new report by the Environmental Justice Foundation (EJF) has highlighted how Ghana is missing out on $23.7 million dollars annually in fishing license fees and fines from trawlers.

At a training workshop for selected media practitioners in Accra last Thursday, Mr. Kwodwo Yamoah, said though Ghana’s fees and fines are very low for local vessels, about 90% of Ghanaian trawl fleets are owned by Chinese corporations which use local ‘front’ companies to register as Ghanaians just to circumvent the laws of Ghana.

He was of the view that, the opacity over ownership of trawls in Ghana allows Chines corporations to pay below the market value for access to Ghana’s ocean resource, thus, committing illegal fishing offenses without significant repercussions.

The Executive Director of CEMLAWS Africa, Dr. Kamal-Deen Ali, on part said despite the Country’s laws prohibiting foreign-owned vessels from fishing in Ghana, many fishing vessel flags flying are owned by foreigners with locals acting as fronters for huge benefits.

The training workshop forms part a project titled; “Promoting local capacity to address the destabilizing impacts of foreign fishing vessels in the Gulf of Guinea and Mauritania”.

According to Dr Ali, the strategic objectives of the project was to increase CSOs monitoring, media reporting, and public awareness of destabilizing influences of Illegal, Unreported and Unregulated fishing (IUUF) and Distant Water Fishing (DWF) vessels in Ghana.

He said it is to achieve this objective that the implementation partners have developed a training package to equip journalists with adequate knowledge and skills for reporting competently on the fishing activities of foreign distant water vessels, and government’s fishing-related decisions and developments.

Dr. Kamald-Deen said the project, which was being jointly coordinated by CEMLAWS Africa, and the Centre for Coastal Management (CCM), University of Cape Coast, is funded by the Department of State, U.S Embassy in Accra.

The Executive Director of the International Secretariat of the Fisheries Transparency Initiative (FiTI), Sven Biermann, said the transparency in fisheries management yields multiple benefits such as strengthening the ability for effective oversight, accountability, public dialogue and also enhances the capacity to manage fisheries sustainably based on best available information.

The Director of the Centre for Coastal Management, Prof Dennis W. Aheto, agrees that the lack of information in Ghana was making things difficult to ascertain destabilizing impact of DWFVs on Ghana and other countries included in the project.

He admitted that, activities of the DWFVs was creating socio-economic impacts on fishing communities.

Source: Accra Times