The “commodity is being sold to people in drums secretly and hoard them and later sell it at an exorbitant prices to fishermen”, the DCE retorted. “Even people without fishing gears and chainsaw operators are involved in this bad practice and later turn to accused government of irregular supply of the products to fishing communities” Mr Nkum.

These came to light at a Town Hall Meeting organised by the Gomoa West District Assembly to educate the people about the proposed closing of the fishing, which had been postponed at Apam.

It was jointly organised by the Gomoa West District Assembly in collaboration with the Information Services Department.  Mr Nkum said recently some persons who were involved this illicit acts were unlucky that the commodity caught fire and thus disfigured a lot of them at Apam.

The DCE was speaking at forum held at Apam to respond to concerns raised by the Chief Fisherman of Apam, Nana Kobina Caiquo that he had received lot of verbal insults from his fellow’s fishermen that he was the brain behind the closing of fishing government proposed to implement in July this year.

Mr Nkum said the government had no intention to take away the livelihood of fishermen through the closure of fishing, but the idea was to protect small fish species in order to increase the stock in subsequence years.

He advised the Chief Fisherman to sensitise fisher folks to desist from utterances that would not create good relationship with people in the fishing communities. The DCE said the government under the President Nana Akufo-Addo had laudable plans for fishermen and fishmongers, adding that, it was the responsibility of the government to provide adequate resources to safeguard fishing industry.

The Central Regional information Officer, Mr. Kofi Dei, asked the participants at the forum that it was good for the people in the fishing communities to know something about the decision to close fishing. He called on the people to refrain from politicization of the issues, which could have negative impact on standards of living of fishermen and fishmongers.