A new licensing regime for fishing vessels, renewable every quarter, would be introduced in the first quarter of next year to bring sanity into the fishing industry and save the nation about 120 million dollars revenue lost annually.

Mr Ishmael Ashietey, Minister of State for Fisheries, who announced this at a meeting in Accra on Thursday with exporters and importers of fish, said licensing officers would start inspecting vessels from October as a prerequisite for the renewal of licences.

He said the new licence would be issued in strict conformity with the Fisheries Law of 1991, PNDC Law 256, until the new Fisheries Bill was passed.

The law requires fishing vessels to meet safety standards, insurance requirements, have the prescribed net mesh sizes and have qualified crew among other things.

The current license is renewable annually.

Mr Ashietey deplored the practice of some Ghanaian vessels, which either sold their tuna catch and other species at sea or in other countries without permission, saying it contravened the law.

According to Section 33 of the Law, "...the entire catch of every tuna vessel and every other fishing vessel. shall be landed in Ghana before any transhipment or export of the catch."

Mr Ashietey said some vessels were also flouting the requirement for tuna vessels to sell not less than 10 per cent of their catch to local processing companies.

He said such negative practices were causing the loss of revenue to the state and affecting the progress of tuna processing companies.

"I am frightened by the reports I hear about your activities; the nation is not benefiting from this industry," he said. "We will, therefore, enforce the law to the letter to bring the necessary improvement we need."

He also criticised the sole use of foreign captains for tuna vessels and the poor wages of Ghanaian employees.

"Some people said we should be lenient with you because you employ Ghanaians. However, it is better to deal with you to save the 10 million dollars we lose monthly than allow you to operate and pay our people as little as 76,000 cedis a month.

Mr Ashietey urged the vessel owners to always give accurate information on their activities to ensure proper management of the fish stock and the industry.

Dr Kwame A. Koranteng, assistant director of Fisheries, explained that accurate data on their catch would not only help tax purposes, but would provide scientists an accurate picture of our fish stock.

"Canada lost their cod because fishermen kept relevant information from scientists," he said. "Wrong information will result in wrong assessment."

He said the size, quantity and types of fish landed over the past 10 years indicated the depletion of the country's fish stock.

Ghana imports bout 150 million dollars of fish annually.

Mr Alfred Tetebo, a research officer at the Fisheries Department, warned that the management and captains of vessels arrested for flouting the law would be prosecuted.