Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources, Hon. Emma Kowa Jalloh has on Thursday 11th February, briefed the press on measures her ministry has put in place to transform the Fisheries Sector into a viable entity.
Speaking at the usual weekly press conference which was attended by the Deputy Minister, the Permanent Secretary, Directors and other senior staff of the ministry at the Ministry of Information and Communication’s Conference Hall, 8th Floor Youyi Building, Freetown, she reemphasized the importance of the Fisheries Sector, while describing fish as the most important source of animal protein in the country. She spoke about the significant role her ministry is playing in developing the country’s economy, saying, it has generated more than Eleven Point Seven Million Dollars annually for the government. She said that the sector creates employment for Sierra Leoneans and also contributes approximately 10.2% to the country’s Gross Domestic Products, GDP. She assured that all being equal, the sector has the potential to contribute over Thirty Million United State Dollars, annually.
The Fisheries Minister said the governance of the Fisheries Sector works in tandem with the policy objective under the Government’s New Direction Agenda, which is to create a profitable sector that contributes significantly to socio-economic development through sustainable management and utilization of the country’s fisheries resources while conserving the environment.
According to her, in order for the ministry to achieve this, she said it has setup six strategic measures, including improvement in the management of sierra Leone fisheries, reduction of illegal fishing through surveillance and other means, value addition in terms of fish and fisheries products accessing EU and other international markets, aquaculture and inland fisheries management, effective and reliable data collection and information system including Fish Stock Assessment and effective extension services such as strengthening of the Artisanal Fisheries Sector.
She endeavored to shed light on two major strategies, citing, the reduction of illegal fishing through surveillance and other means. She said the ministry is collaborating with stakeholder institutions under the Joint Maritime Committee to conduct regular sea surveillance patrols, using the mid-range fisheries patrol vessels, and that personnel engaged in surveillance activities are given trainings to improve their skills. She added that the ministry has trained fisheries observers onboard all licensed industrial fishing vessels to reinforce monitoring and control. She also said, the ministry, uses state- of- the- art Vessel Monitoring System and Automatic Identification System to track the activities and movement of fishing vessels at sea to ensure that they do not fish in protected areas.
Providing an insight into the data collection and information system, which she said is also an effective and reliable strategy used by the ministry, the Minister of Fisheries said with support from the Chinese Government they have organized two scientific surveys which should have been conducted in 2019, but put on hold due to covid-19. She added that there is a scientific observer program going on to assess key fish stocks in the Economic Exclusion Zone (EEZ) of Sierra Leone. She also noted that fisheries data on ‘catch and effort’ are being encoded and that the ministry is developing a web-based data collection application. She added that the ministry has provided mobile tablets and computers for data collection to ensure timely encoding of data.
Mbalu Ibrahim
Information Officer
MFMR