He claimed that because fishermen had no other enterprises and depended only on the sea to sustain their houses, blocking the sea for one month without the government taking any action to ease their suffering would make their already dire situation much worse.
Markwei claimed that during past closed seasons, none of the fishermen in Jamestown had received any help or assistance from the authorities.
Yaw Mensah, who also fishes out of Jamestown, claimed he was forced to squander all of his funds during the off-season since he lacked any other source of income.
The fishermen who engaged in illicit, unreported, and unregulated fishing, he claimed, were the ones who always grinned, regardless of whether fish stocks rose after the closed season.
with those employing authorised techniques seldom returning with anything from their explorations.
In response to his worries, Nii Ashitey, a
Fisher stated that for a very long time, the fishing villages had been disregarded in all choices that had an impact on their life. He said that it was regrettable that Jamestown's fishermen were not working during the off-season.
Coastal Cape
According to a portion of the fishing community in Cape Coast, August is the ideal month for the closed season, according to scientific evidence. Shirley Asiedu-Addo reports this.
Among those who identified August as the ideal time was Nana Kweigya, President of the Canoe and Fishing Gear Owners Association of Ghana (CaFGOAG), who noted that the DGN net (ahyekon) fishermen went fishing in July and the ongoing The downfall of that type of fishing was caused by the sea's shutdown in July.
He clarified that moving the restricted season to August will enable the fishermen to make preparations for it.
The situation of fishers along the coast had gotten worse, according to Nana Kweigya, since a lack of premix fuel had stopped many of them from heading out to sea for the previous four months.
The difficulties along the shore will grow due to the closed season, according to Kweku Appiah, a canoe owner in Cape Coast.
He said that the government should do more to include fishermen and that it would be reasonable to keep the fishing season open this year.