The Albert Bosomtwi-Sam Fishing Harbour at Takoradi has recorded significant improvement in its annual revenue since it started commercial operations in May 1999.

From a modest return of 141.6 million cedis between May and December 1999, revenue has improved over 370 percent to 667.8 million cedis in 2002.

Some of the sources of revenue include sale of ice blocks, which constitutes 80 to 90 per cent and has remained the major avenue of income at the port.

This was contained in a report by the ABS Fishing Harbour and signed by Mr Kumi Adjei-Sam, Fishing Harbour Manager.

This was made known to some members of the Tema branch of the Ghana Journalists Association (GJA) who visited the Takoradi Harbour over the weekend to acquaint themselves with the operations at the Harbour.

Mr Adjei-Sam, who took the journalists round the fishing harbour, said other sources of revenue were port dues, vehicle tolls and pedestrian entry tolls.

The report said the 31-stall facility, which was built in 2000 to facilitate the sale of fish by fishermen and fishmongers, is not intensively utilized.

The problem is due "mainly to its location, since it is far from the active fish landing areas of both the new harbour and the old landing beach", he said.

Mr Adjei-Sam said efforts are being made to educate and convince the fishermen to use the harbour adding "should this fail after a period of time, management would have to consider the option of allocating the stalls to the other sellers in the harbour market".

The report said the Harbour is providing socio economic assistance to the fishing community around Sekondi-Takoradi Metropolis and about 15,000 people earn their sources of living and sustenance from the facility.

In 1995, Ghana received a 13.5 million dollar grant from the government of Japan to build a new fishing harbour at Sekondi to provide modern fish landing and handling facilities for inshore boats.