MINISTRY RECEIVES DOCUMENTS ON LANDING SITES (PAGE 32)

THE Ministry of Fisheries has received contract documents on the proposed 14 fish landing sites from DHV BV, a Netherlands based consultancy firm in Accra.
The ministry has already secured $148 million for the projects, which are to be sited in areas where fishermen have suffered post-harvest losses due to bad weather.
The first phase of the project, which will start this year, includes the construction of cold store facilities at the landing sites to prevent fish caught during the bumper season from perishing.
At a ceremony to receive the contract documents, Mrs Gladys Asmah, Minister of Fisheries, said the building of the landing sites and the introduction of fibre glass boats were geared towards the modernisation of the fishing industry to make it safer.
She named the beneficiary communities of the landing facilities to include Moree, Elmina, Winneba, Tepa Abotoase, Dzemeini, Tefe, and James Town in the Greater Accra Region.
She said the fibre glass technology and the landing site could considerably reduce accidents as wooden boats usually break up during landing under stormy tropical weather leading to fishermen losing their catch just on their doorsteps.
She said the ministry had liaised with the Regional Maritime Academy to fashion out courses in the study of the oceans for fishermen to build their capacities especially in Tuna fishing, which the country was well endowed with.
She said Ghana was the fourth largest tuna producing country in the world but Ghanaian fishermen lacked the technology for taming and farming this abundant natural resource.
She commended Starkist cannery of Tema for contributing to the economic development of the country as the factory continued to increase their tuna processing into finished products for the local and international markets.
She said despite these natural resources, fishing communities along the country's coasts were among the poorest in the country due mainly to the seasonal nature of the fishing industry, as well as the lack of modern equipment to enable fishermen to fish all year round.
As part of the government’s poverty reduction and wealth creation along the coastal communities some communities have been selected for the Ghana Growth and Poverty Reduction Strategy (GPRS II).
Mrs Asmah explained that with the modernisation of the industry the standard of living in the fishing communities would be raised to enable the fishing industry to contribute more to reducing inflation by making fish products affordable to the ordinary Ghanaian.