The Ghana Maritime Authority (GMA) has held a meeting with the executives of the Ghana Industrial Trawlers Association (GITA), as part of measures to ensure that trawlers go through the needed inspections to prepare them for sea after the closed season.
The industrial trawlers are expected to observe a two-month closed fishing season between July 1st and August 31st, 2025.
Dr Kamal-Deen Ali, the Director-General of the Ghana Maritime Authority (GMA), during a surprise familiarisation visit to the Tema office of the authority, said during the period of the closed season, the trawlers must go through several inspections to ensure that by the time their vessels were to go to sea, they would remain seaworthy.
The meeting, he said, was to enable the two entities to prepare the calendar and put in the requirements ahead, stressing that in the maritime field, “you can’t wait; everything has to be timely.”
“So, they want to have a meeting already with the leadership of GITA to put in place a plan of action so that as soon as the closed season hits, they make their vessels available according to a schedule to go through all the inspections and certification,” Dr Ali stated.
He said within the 60 days of the closed season, all the necessary things must be done early enough and commended the Tema Office of the GMA for the proactive way they had been engaging with their stakeholders ahead, to make sure that if there were issues, they are understood, outlined, and a programme of action put in place to address them.
Mr Emmanuel Tukpeyi, the Tema Manager of the GMA, revealed that the components to be inspected included safety and environment, explaining that safety deals with the raft and the life jackets, while the radio deals with their communication gadgets, which help the GMA to detect the vessels at sea and also help the crew to raise alarms and awareness when things happen.
Mr Tukpeyi added that the environment component deals with the International Oil Pollution Prevention (IOPP), equipment, manuals, and logbooks that would be checked.
“So, all these things will be discussed here, and when they have any challenges, they will tell us, and we will, in turn, find ways to solve the problems for them. One of the problems was that the last time we had engagement with some, they didn’t have the competence, so we suggested that they have consultants on their part who will do the maintenance for them and will monitor the vessels.
And we give them regular training to build their capacity,” he added.
The GMA leadership added that other things to be checked include the comfort of the seamen, such as mattresses for sleeping and other things that would make their long days at sea safe.
By Laudia Sawer, GNA