PRICE OF FISH GOES DOWN IN TEMA (PAGE 47)

The cost of fish reduced considerably last Friday at the Tema Fishing harbour canoe beach following a bumper catch by fishermen.
A crate of herrings that previously sold at GH¢22 now costs GH¢16 while salmon now costs GH¢18 as against GH¢26.
Fishermen in Tema landed more fish last Friday than last Monday after a long period of lean catch in the sector.
It was another busy day at the beach when the fishermen landed tuna, herrings, salmon and other species of fish.
As early as 7a.m. when the Daily Graphic went to the canoe beach the boats had started arriving with the fishermen showing joyous faces, an indication that they were successful.
They claimed that from all indications the season would be good and they were expecting it to last up till November.
According to them, the move to curtail the activities of the big trawlers had shown that they were part of the problem. One of the fishermen, Mr George Forson, claimed that the fishermen earlier returned with an average of three crates of fish daily but now they were able to get 50 crates or more.
He said the foreign vessels cleared the breeding grounds with their system of fishing and therefore the local fishermen were only lucky to have some catch.
Mr Forson appealed to the Navy to intensify its action against the culprits to save the industry, noting that they should have been catching bigger fishes by now, but they only got medium-size ones.
He noted that they had not in the past week encountered the bigger vessels at sea and suspected that the foreigners could possibly be withdrawing from their activities and therefore had gone far away to sea.
The Tema canoe beach has over 500 canoes operating but in the last four years fishermen had not experienced any bumper catch. Bigger foreign vessels were blamed for the woes of the local fishermen but recently there have been intensified complaints about the activities of the bigger vessels, which has affected the operations of local canoe fishermen.