Ghana’s Maritime Authority, the regulator of the maritime industry in the West African nation, says it will soon acquire the power from the Supreme Court to seize and destroy wooden boats used for illegal fuel business.
Director General of the Authority, Mr Thomas Kofi Alonsi said the legal department of the Authority has been instructed to go to court and obtain the necessary orders that will allow the regulator to lawfully seize and destroy these boats.
Mr Alonsi said this when he met with security chiefs at the Western Naval base.
He said the illegal fuel trade along the coast in the Central and Takoradi enclaves had assumed alarming proportions.
The growing activities of illegal boats, locally called ‘dendeys’, is becoming a menace in the area.
Disguised as fishing boats, these massive wooden vessels, with the storage capacity of tens of thousands of litres, propelled by twin-outboard motors, go to the high seas, mostly at night, where criminal oil tanker ships dock.
Tons of fuel is pumped from the tankers into the dendeys (wooden boats) which sail to different beaches and discharge their content into waiting road fuel tankers on the blind side of tax and other regulatory authorities.
The state loses large amounts of revenue and regulators lose levies as a result of these illegal activities of fuel smugglers.
As if that is not enough, large quantities of fuel, mostly diesel, spill on the beaches, thereby causing pollution and other environmental hazards.
This illegally procured fuel which is usually of low quality end up on the market, having escaped the regulatory scrutiny and quality assurance of the National Petroleum Authority (NPA), posing serious risks to vehicles.
At the meeting between the Ghana Maritime Authority, the Head of Marine Police, DCOP Iddi Seidu, and the Western Naval Command, Commodore E.A. Kwafo, the Acting Flag Officer Commanding of the Western Naval Command, painted a bleak picture of risks posed by the ‘dendeys’.
“We are rearing a monster which will one day consume all of us,” he said tersely.
Commodore Kwafo said the owners of these boats, if not stopped, may become emboldened and may start using their boats to cart other illicit products such as weapons and drugs.
He praised the GMA for instituting night patrols which have led to the arrest and seizure of some ships and dendeys engaged in illegal bunkering.
The Director General of GMA, Mr Thomas Alonsi, who was accompanied by his two deputies, Messrs Daniel Appianin and Yaw Antwi Akosa, as well as the Head of Legal and Board Secretary, Mrs Patience Ella Diaba, commended the Naval Command and the Marine Police for detailing armed men to provide security for the night patrols.
He said it was fiercely urgent for the illegal fuel dealers to be reined in and put on a leash.
“The building of these boats is itself in violation of the GMA’s regulations because by law, they are required to obtain a permit from us to build such vessels. My officers here, however, tell me no one has ever applied for any such permit.”
Mr Alonsi said beyond that, the boats are supposed to be registered and licensed to go to sea but none of the dendeys is registered or licensed or even marked.
“This is not right,” he said.
The Head of the Ghana Maritime Authority at Takoradi, Captain William E. Thompson, explained that destroying the boats would achieve a number of things – make it unprofitable to engage in fuel smuggling, protect fuel consumers from substandard products and generate revenue for the state.
Source:www.energynewsafrica.com