‘Weak Governance Affecting Fishery Industry’

FRIENDS OF the Nation  (FoN),  a non-governmental organization (NGO), says the contribution of Ghana’s fishery industry to the national economy is on the decline as a result of “ weak governance.”

This was made known in Accra yesterday at a press conference organized by FoN to release the report of a research it conducted alongside the Ghana National Canoe Fishermen’s Council in the Western Region with support from the BUSAC Fund.

The research was conducted across the six coastal belts of the country over a period of six months.

Addressing the media, Programmes Manager of FoN, Kyei Kwadwo Yamoah, observed that the fishery sector “is currently faced with the challenge of declining marine resources as a result of weak governance that has tolerated wasteful over-capacity, conflicts and widespread illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing.”

According to him, concerns had been raised over weak enforcement of fisheries laws and compliance by fishers.

Furthermore, Mr Kyei Yamoah pointed out that “the widespread use of unsustainable and harmful fishing methods is contributing to over-fishing and degradation of critical coastal fisheries habitats.”

Recommendations

To help address the menace, he recommended on behalf of FoN that among other things, authorities in the sector must ensure the compulsory enforcement of existing legislations.

According to him, two main cardinal strategies – voluntary compliance and deterrence – are needed to achieve a meaningful result in reviving the declining fishery sector.

He cautioned that “for the achievement of effective results, selective enforcement sometimes called targeted enforcement, should be avoided if possible, because communities’ perception of biases is amplified as they see themselves as victims but not perpetrators or breakers of the law.”

Source: Daily Guide