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.
Mr 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 disclosed that Ghana did not have trained seamen, “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 a certain part 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’s where most of the tuna could be caught.
Giving a brief history on piracy, he said all the pirates were from Nigeria adding that they used to attack fuel tankers at sea until one day they could not get any to attack and launched onto tuna vessel, where they discovered that there were foreign crew members whom they captured and released after a ransom was paid.
He 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 had 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 is also the Director of Operations for Laif Fisheries, and a fisheries advocate said currently they relied on signals from some Italian Naval Ships monitoring in the corridor, who alert the authorities of impending piracy attacks leading to some calm in the system.
Mr Francis Ameyibor, Tema Regional Manager of GNA explained that the stakeholder engagement seeks to strengthen the media’s relations with state and non-state actors.
He said in view of emerging journalistic developmental challenges especially, fake news and social media trending, where ministers of state and government officials resorted to communicate officially through social media platforms, there is the need to hold the pillars of professional journalism through the dissemination of unbiased news to the world.
He described as an anomaly the practice, where public officials disseminated formal information through their private social media portal, saying “as much as it is wrong, it is also a dangerous development which has contributed to the circulation of fake news.
“Now the world especially media practitioners are confused whether to hold on to the traditional media professionalism or get onboard the fast track social media train with its landmines”.
Mr Ameyibor said the principles of truthfulness, accuracy, objectivity, impartiality, fairness, and public accountability, could not be sacrificed on the altar of speed or speculative journalism.
“We cannot deny the fact that the old analog way of news gathering has long passed; news gathering and dissemination cannot wait for two seconds, we are in the fast lane, what then can media practitioners do to catch up with the fast moving new media news train?
He said the gathering of newsworthy information and its subsequent dissemination to the public had changed, hence the need for the Ghanaian media landscape to wake up to the global wind of change.
“We need news on the hour mark, in between the hours too, the citizen need news, if the traditional media fail to provide it, the social media will fill the vacuum.
“Our news packaging must also change from the mediocre long sermons news to fast, accurate, objective and straightforward news,” Mr Ameyibor noted.
Other speakers include: Mr Irwin Cofie, SIC Insurance Deputy Head of Marketing; Mrs Cunthia Kwarten Tufuor SIC Tema Area Manager; Ms Cunthia Twumasi, Deputy Area Manager who spoke on Fire Insurance and Homeplus Policy; and Mrs Doris Gorman, Tema Municipal Director of Information Service Department.
