General News of Wednesday, 18 July 2018
Source: www.ghanaweb.com
2018-07-18
Fishermen in Chorkor have endorsed the ban
The Fishermen Association of Chorkor has declared their unwavering support to the ban on fishing in Ghana despite the appeal by other fishermen to abolish it.
The fishermen in Chorkor and its environs held a meeting on Wednesday to declare their position on the matter stating that they believe the decision by the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture is the best solution to solving the ailing problems of fishmongers.
The sector Ministry announced a closed season on Friday, 13 July 2018 as part of measures to ensure stock recovery to curtail the depletion of Ghana’s fish stock. The ban on fishing will commence from 7th August to 4th September 2018 and will affect all fleet.
The Ministry has vowed that fishermen caught fishing during the one-month closed season will be fined between $500,000 and $2 million.
Spokesperson of the Greater Accra Fishermen Association, Nii Clottey disclosed that the Ministry conducted an underground research on the issue and found it necessary to initiate the close season.
“Our Minister of Fisheries and the President gave us directives and told us they’ve made research and we’ve realized that it is true we have a problem, so they would introduce something called closed season which has happened before,” he said.
He went ahead to declare their support for the ban saying, “right now we, the fishermen in Chorkor and its environs say that we are in total support of the Minister of Fisheries because we are facing a very massive problem and if we don’t take good care we would suffer.”
Some fishing communities have planned to embark on a demonstration this week.
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