Minister of Transport, Kweku Ofori Asiamah, has revealed that government has earmarked three towns namely Ekumfi Otuam, Osu, and Mfantseman for the construction of modern fish landing sites.
This will bring the total number of such projects along the country’s coastal regions to 14 with similar ongoing projects in Axim, Dixcove in the Western Region; Moree, Elmina, Senya Beraku, Gomoa Fetteh, Winneba, Mumford in the Central Region; James Town, Teshie in the Greater Accra Region and Keta in the Volta Region.
Giving an overview of the transport sector on GPHA’s Eye on Port programme, the minister said that these projects were a manifestation of the vision of the President Nana Addo Dankwa Akufo Addo to give the artisanal fishing industry a major facelift.
“The fishing landing sites project is very key to the President. In the 90s, the then Ministry of Agriculture came out with a feasibility study that said the conditions of our fisher folk were not the best and for that matter we needed to improve. They came out with this fish landing sites idea,” he said.
According to him, a funding facility has been secured from the Belgian government to transform the fish landing site in Elmina to a fishing harbor and for that matter, an initial CDB funding available for Elmina project has been diverted for the construction of the additional landing sites.
Similarly, Jamestown project is also being developed into a fishing harbor funded separately by a grant from the Chinese government, he said.
Mr. Ofori Asiamah who has been sworn into office for a second term said all these projects are steadily ongoing and when completed, will provide employment and improve lives of Ghanaians, increase productivity of the fishing industry.
He encouraged Ghanaians to be circumspect in their judgements of such projects saying while some projects across the country may not demonstrate physical construction works yet, many significant processes are being undertaken to ensure that the outcomes of the projects reflect their original design and purpose.