Marine Experts Meet In Accra
THE GHANA Maritime Authority (GMA) has announced plans towards the installation of electronic surveillance systems with coverage range of about 200 nautical miles along the country's coastline to help track down unlawful activities within Ghana's territorial waters and its economic exclusive zone for detection and combat purposes.
To this end, the GMA would partner the Ghana Navy, Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority, National Security, CEPS, Narcotics Board, the Police and other stakeholders in the field, to help implement the Maritime security surveillance project.
The Minister for Harbours and Railways, Professor Christopher Ameyaw-Akumfi, announced this last Wednesday at the opening ceremony of a three-day workshop for stakeholders from seven West African countries to deliberate on the London Convention on dumping at sea and other related conventions aimed at preventing ship source pollution of the marine environment.
The countries include Ghana, Sierra Leone, Guinea Bissau, Sao Tome, Liberia, Gambia and Nigeria.
The Minister said the new technology had been found to be more technically and economically feasible than other means adding that the timing of the workshop was opportune against the background of the country's oil discovery and its associated consequences on the marine environment.
Prof. Ameyaw-Akumfi said there was the need to consider the negative impact associated with such activities on marine environment and design proactive measures to combat such occurrences.
The Director General of GMA, Mr. Issaka Peter Azuma, said the purpose of the workshop was to increase awareness of the effects of dumping of all sorts of dangerous materials within the Gulf Stream and apply an enhanced understanding of the provisions of the convention and its protocol at combating such unlawful practices.
He said the GMA had since the beginning of the year began implementing the Abuja Memorandum of Understanding programme by ensuring that substandard ships from foreign countries are not allowed to dock at the country's ports or operate within its territorial waters as practiced in other regional blocks of the world.
Mr. Azuma re-affirmed the GMA's commitment to the protocol and assured the international Maritime community that Ghana would not compromise its port state control measures on unseaworthy ships especially crude oil carriers and chemical tankers.
“We will intensify work on our audit programme on operators of reception facilities and off-shore mooring systems in order to prevent possible pollution of marine environment of countries in the sub-region”, he added.
The workshop, which was jointly organized by the International Maritime Organization (IMO), would focus on areas such as Legal Framework for Marine Pollution Management; Introduction to Waste Assessment Guidance; Vessels and Platforms Waste Assessment Guidance; Monitoring Wastes Disposal and the Protocol Requirement.
The current membership of the IMO is 82 including Ghana and its protocol was accepted in 1996 to further modernize it.
Under the protocol, all forms of dumping is prohibited except for possibly acceptable levels of certain wastes under the “reserve list” which include dredged material, sewage sludge, fish wastes and organic material of natural origin.
By Abubakar Salifu