Artisanal fishers in the country have threatened to do the unthinkable should the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture as well as the Fisheries Commission fail to put a stop to ‘saiko.’
According to them, the illegal fishing activity (saiko) is putting most of them out of business and as a result they are unable to feed themselves and their families.
“For years we have spoken against saiko, but the relevant authorities have ignored us and not addressed our grievances, but you see there is going to come a time when we will stand up for ourselves because we are going hungry,” said two representatives of Artisanal fishers on Adom FM’s Dwaso Nsem show on Friday morning.
“We don’t want to make politics out of the situation but the truth is that since this government came to power, none of our regulators be it the ministry itself or the fisheries commission have sat with us to listen to our grievances, not even for once,” they fumed.
READ ALSO:
“We are aware that there is someone representing artisanal fishers at the Fisheries Commission, but we don’t know who that person is and not for once he even approached us to ask us what our problems and challenges are,” they lamented.
Speaking further, they asserted that, because of saiko, they are now unable to catch popular fish like salmon.
He said a single catch of a trawler used by Chinese nationals is more than the combined 65 catches of an artisanal fishers.