The
Executive Director of the Fisheries Commission, Michael
Arthur-Dadzie, has said the crew members of a Chinese fishing vessel, who were
arrested over the disappearance of a Ghanaian fishing observer, Emmanuel Essien,
have been granted bail.
He
said from what he had gathered, the police had granted police inquiry bail to
the crew.
“When
I heard the report of the missing case on July 5, I asked them to lodge a
report to the (Tema) Harbour police and the navy; all that was done. All the
crew members were arrested and taken into custody. My information is that the
police in the process of their investigation granted them police inquiry bill
and have even called for an extract and a sea trip,” he disclosed.
Essien,
a fishing observer assigned to the MengXin 15, a Chinese vessel operating in
Ghana, had been reported missing for about three weeks now.
Some
three weeks ago, Essien embarked on a scheduled observer mission with the said
vessel but has since not been seen and his colleagues are alleging that the
vessel returned from its deep-sea operations without the observer.
It
is standard practice to assign observers to foreign and local fishing vessels
that fish in Ghanaian waters.
The
monitoring, control and surveillance department of the Ministry for Fisheries
and Aqua Culture is responsible for the assignment of observers.
“Basically,
every fishing vessel goes to sea on board with an observer who will record all
activities at sea and report back to the Ministry of Fisheries. Recently, there
was a Chinese vessel by name MengXin 15 with observer Emmanuel on board.
“Five
days after the trip, the vessel came back reporting that the observer was
missing,” one of the observers told Citi
News on condition of anonymity.
Source:
Citi FM
