The Jamestown Fishing Harbour is attracting more fishermen and fish traders, with improved infrastructure and preservation facilities creating opportunities to expand fishing activities, strengthen local commerce and support employment.
The number of fishermen using the facility has increased from about 400 in the previous year to more than 500, reflecting growing confidence in the harbour as a safer landing point for fishing canoes.
Engineer Stephen Keame Owiah, General Manager of the Jamestown Fishing Harbour, said the facility was also attracting fishermen from the Central and Western Regions, who preferred its safer shelter to landing their canoes on open beaches.
Speaking in an interview, he said the harbour was equipped with a fish market, an ice-making plant and cold-storage facilities to improve fish handling, preservation and trading.
He said the infrastructure was expected to strengthen the fisheries value chain by reducing post-harvest losses, improving market access and creating better commercial opportunities for fishermen and fishmongers.
A major investment supporting the harbour’s operations is its 60-metric-tonne ice-making facility, which has ended the area’s previous dependence on Tema for ice supplies.
Mr Owiah said the plant now supplied ice to fishermen and fish traders, helping them preserve their catches and maintain fish quality before sales.
The facility also provided employment opportunities for residents, including indigenous people engaged in operating the ice-making plant.
He said the harbour’s four cold-storage units, with a combined capacity of about 1,000 metric tonnes, offered significant potential for supporting fish preservation and distribution.
However, he noted that current fish landings were insufficient to fill even one of the storage units, pointing to a gap between the harbour’s installed storage capacity and the volume of fish being landed.
He expressed optimism that resolving access challenges affecting trawlers would attract more vessels and improve the utilisation of the storage infrastructure.
Mr Owiah said the harbour’s core mandate was to provide a secure landing facility for fishermen while creating an organised trading environment for women in the fishing business.
He said the fish market offered fishmongers better conditions to display and sell their products than the beaches and informal trading spaces previously used.
The facility also had designated areas for cleaning and preparing fish for customers, with products including fresh catches such as grouper and red fish.
He said provisions had also been made for women to leave their toddlers in a designated space while attending to their businesses, helping to make trading more convenient.
Despite the progress, Mr Owiah identified plastic waste accumulating in the northern section of the harbour as a major operational challenge.
He explained that wind carried plastic waste from a nearby quarry into the facility, while the relatively short breakwater allowed large quantities of waste to enter the harbour.
The situation, he said, had restricted access for trawlers seeking to use the ship repair yard, although fishing canoes could still access the facility.
He said addressing the waste accumulation and improving access to the repair yard would enable the harbour to serve a wider range of fishing vessels, potentially increasing its commercial activities and revenue-generating capacity.
Mr Owiah said the harbour, commissioned about two years ago, had instituted maintenance measures to minimise the effects of the salty sea breeze on its infrastructure and protect the facility’s long-term value.
He urged fishermen, fishmongers and other users to adopt a stronger maintenance culture to safeguard the infrastructure and ensure its sustainability.
