Richster Nii Amarh Amarfio
The Ghana Tuna Association (GTA) has announced that from October, Naval officers will be onboard tuna vessels as a measure against the frequent attacks of pirates on high seas.
Richster Nii Amarh Amarfio, Secretary of the Association, disclosing this at the sixth Ghana News Agency-Tema stakeholder engagement seminar said vessel owners would take care of officers onboard.
Mr. Amarfio said, “We have agreed to put naval officers on the vessels at a fee and that is the only reason why Korea will allow its trained captains and others to fish around the Eastern corridor area which is noted for piracy activities.”
He said that Ghana did not have enough trained seamen, adding that “we can’t do without the Korea crew, 85 per cent of our partnerships are Koreans, if they exit the system as they wanted to do, the system especially the tuna industry will collapse.”
He said some parts of the Eastern corridor had been marked as high risk area by the Korea government, and cautioned its citizens against going to those areas even though that is where most of the tuna could be caught.
Giving a brief history on piracy, he said all the pirates were from the Nigerian region, adding that they used to attack fuel tankers at sea until they started launching onto tuna vessels, where they discovered that there were foreign crew members whom they captured and released after a ransom was paid.
Mr. Amarfio disclosed that this year two Ghanaian vessels had already been hijacked by the pirates, disclosing that in one of the hijacks, five foreign crew members of his vessel were taken captives.
He said all the crew members have since been brought back, adding however that “some out of fear had gone back to their countries, and because of the piracy it is difficult to get crew members as Ghana does not train such professionals.”
Mr. Amarfio, who doubles as the Director of Operations for Laif Fisheries, and a fisheries advocate, said currently they rely on signals from some Italian naval ships monitoring the corridor for pirate attacks, and said they are helping to keep the waters safe.
GNA