The Blue Economy and Governance Consult is urging the media to develop closer ties with the fishing industry, which will result in the production of accurate reporting for the sector's overall benefit.

The CEO of the Blue Economy and Governance Consult, Richster Nii Armah Amarfio, was speaking during the advocacy group’s maiden media engagement in Tema.
He said that in order for stories to accurately reflect events occurring on the ground, he expects media professionals and journalists to double-check facts with industry before publications are made.

“We are very much aware of the challenges our industry faces. We are very much aware of the fact that our fisheries resources are declining. But, as an industry we believe that we need to create more collaboration with the media — the media seems too removed from the industry.

"The media seems to report only what they see. One of the things we need to do, is to see if at such meetings like international commission on the conservation of Atlantic tuna, media houses that can go, are allowed to join us so that they would understand how some of the processes work. Because if they attend, they will realise that Ghana is doing very well in terms of our fisheries management. We want to have a committed media to report on some of the positives that are happening in the industry.”

Richster Nii Armah Amarfio, who is also the Secretary for the National Fisheries Association of Ghana (NAFAG) and the Ghana Tuna Association (GTA), also lamented other issues bedevilling the industry which need increased attention.

He called for urgent attention on the training of high-level seafarers in the industry to be able to make up for the under-capacity of skilled staff to man vessels.

“We have failed to build capacity. We have raised this issue several times with Regional Maritime University. It is so expensive for my company for instance to import a Korean captain and pay him in hard currency at high rates. We would wish to have Ghanaian crew who will be doing those. Today we don’t have a single Ghanaian fishing captain that any company can employ.”