13 The following issues came up in subsequent discussions with CBFMC members as well as
Chief fishermen and council. •
There is need for the fisheries Commission to inaugurate all CBFMCs so that they would be accepted in their respective communities. Such an inauguration would also
enhance collaboration with the community. •
Committee members also called for support to set up a monitoring, control and surveillance unit with the state providing logistics in the form of canoe, outboard
motor and communication gadgets. They believed that that support would enhance surveillance at sea to check illegal forms of fishing. The surveillance team would
liaise with the Ghana Navy and Air Force for this purpose.
• Support should also be in the form of incentives for the committee members. In
particular the issues of honoraria payments and serving of refreshments during meetings were raised in all the communities visited. Respondents felt that these will
compensate them for the time lost to other livelihood activities as well as encourage them to commit to the committees activities. They believed lack of incentives is a
major factor constraining the effectiveness of the committee’s operations. A female member of the committee at Abuesi commented that
• If this committee is to be revived, I will suggest that some incentive package is given
to the members. Most of us are out of business and it will be good if we received something for our efforts.
• Konkohene, FDG, 2010
• The regional Fisheries Commission indicated that they were constrained by unreliable
and infrequent budgetary allocations for services from their Head Office. In spite of this, officials managed to attend meetings whenever they were notified. They also
used the FM stations in the region as media to communicate with the fishing communities.
•
3.6 General Community Sensitization
All communities visited indicated that the CBFMC put in place by the Fisheries Commission have collapsed but an NGO, Friends of the Nation, has tried to revamp them. Members
indicated that the NGOs effort fell short of an inauguration to effectively present them to their respective communities and to solicit the cooperation of fishers in the committee’s
work. Individual interviews conducted with fishers and fish traders in the communities visited showed that out of a total respondent of 24 excluding 4 respondents from Aboadze
where no CBFMC has ever been set up, 33 had heard about their management committees and the remaining 67 had not heard anything about the committees. The breakdown of the
responses is as follows:
Table 3-0-C: Community Fishers and Trader Conversant with the CBFMCs
Responses Fishers
Fish Traders Total
Yes 4
4 8 33
No 9
7 16 67
Total 13
11 24 100
Source: Field interviews, 2010 Sorted by gender and occupation, 69 and 64 of fishers and fish traders respectively had
not heard anything about the work of the CBFMCs either since the inception of the concept
14 or their revival in 2008 by the FoN. The 33 of respondents who indicated they had heard
about the committees however claimed either that the committees activities were not visible or that they existed some time back but had collapsed. The next table presents responses
according to communities visited.
Table 4-0-D: Knowledge of CBFMCs by Community Individual Respondents
Community Yes
NO Abuesi
Fishers 1
2 Fish Traders
- 2
Asanda Fishers
- 2
Fish Traders 1
- Axim Apewosika
Fishers 1
2 Fish Traders
- 3
Sekondi Fishers
2 1
Fish Traders 1
1 New Takoradi
Fishers -
2 Fish Traders
2 1
Total 8
16
Source: Field interviews, 2010 The four respondents in Aboadze indicated that they had never heard of any such committee
even in neighbouring fishing communities. The non visibility of the CBFMCs in the communities visited was confirmed when 89 of interviewees claimed that they saw the
chief fisherman and council handling all issues relating to the fishing industry. This position of respondents is not surprising since they are not aware of the existence of the CBFMCs and
therefore do not know that the chief fisherman and council members are all members of the management committee. Again, this portrays that of all the members of the CBFMCs it is
only the chief fisherman and council who are either active or have decided to carry out their traditional functions.
3.7 Roles and Legal Backing of CBFMCs and Chief fisherman
