Fishermen across the country are in arms against the Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture development, Sherry Ayittey for dissolving the national premix fuel committee.
[contextly_sidebar id=”35UyATAkf3ni6PFxMqaYXJ65HwNgkSq9″]The fishermen on Monday besieged the ministry, accusing sector Minister Sherry Ayiettey of making unilateral decisions without consulting them.
The fishermen who are also demanding the resignation of the minister say she is making their work difficult.
Defending their stance on Eyewitness News, Secretary of the landing beach association, Joris Okraine questioned the rationale behind the dissolution of the committee and further called on the minister to give reasons for the decision.
“Every minister of fisheries has to work with the various landing beach committees. There are key problem that she has to tackle, that hasn’t been done,” he lamented.
“The minister just went about by dissolving the national premix committee that we thought that even doing that because we work with such committee if anything at all we should be consulted and even if she had done that on her own, she should have given us a reason for doing that.”
He said they also heard the Central Regional Chairman of the National Democratic Congress (NDC), Allotey Jacob on radio threatening to dissolve the landing beach committee in that region which according to Joris was uncalled for.
Mr Joris further called on government to sack the minister warning that “If the minister is not removed then we will sit up again.”
The Energy Commission Board on March 24, dissolved the premix committees at the various beaches in Central Region due to alleged mismanagement of the product.
According to the commission, most of these committees at the region’s beaches have failed to render their account over 8 months in contradiction to the rules which require the provision of account every 6 months.
Dissolving premix committee not ill-informed – Ministry of Fisheries
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Fisheries has in a press released explained that dissolving the premix fuel committee was not ill-motivated but to ensure sanity prevails in the system.
The ministry argued that it took the decision to among other things prevent some people “from diverting the premix fuel from intended destinations which creates shortages to the disadvantage of fishermen” as well as stop the “proliferation of Premix Fuel sale Points owned by individuals rather than fishermen who should be the actual beneficiaries of the fuel intended for their trade.”
The committee is faced with “unnecessary delays in the delivery of premix fuel to designated locations across the country, leading to loss of income to several fishermen.”
It also added that the dissolution was approved by cabinet.
“The Ministry presented a memorandum to Cabinet on the 24th of November 2014, in line with the Fisheries Act 625 [as amended] for the reconstitution of the National Premix Fuel Committee. This Memorandum, verified by the Attorney General’s Department was intended to reconstitute the old Premix Fuel Committee after six years in office.”
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By: Godwin Allotey Akweiteh/citifmonline.com/Ghana