The Permanent Secretary Federal Ministry of Agriculture and Rural Development Dr. Bukar Hassan, said harnessing the huge potential in fisheries and aquaculture will no doubt give an added impetus to the realisation of Nigeria’s shared objectives of wealth creation, food and nutritional security in the Gulf of Guinea.
He said this during the opening of the tenth annual Ministerial Conference of the Fisheries Committee of the West Central Gulf of Guinea in Abuja.
The Permanent Secretary who was represented by the Director, Agric Business and Marketing in the Ministry Alhaji Musbahu Azeez, stated that this year’s annual conference was unique because it marks the beginning of another milestone in the history of the FCWC as it celebrates the 10th anniversary of existence and excellent performance in fisheries management, promotion of fish trade, fight against illegal unregulated and unreported (IUU), fishing and regional cooperation among member states.
He assured the participants the Ministry’s support of the noble objectives of the committee especially in ensuring that the fisheries resources of the sub-sector was sustainably exploited and managed for the present and future generation of the member states.
He then commended the organisers of the conference for coming up with the theme “Investment for growth and Sustainability in Fisheries in West Africa” which he said was apt and very timely.
In his opening statement, the Secretary General of the Fisheries Committee for Central West of Guinea (FCWC) Mr. Jeraphin Dedi, thanked the Government of Nigeria for having accepted to host the 10th session of the Conference of Ministers and providing all necessary facilities for the conference to succeed.
The Secretary General said, three days had been allocated for the experts to review activities of the committee in the year 2017, proposed key areas of work improve with recommendations for sustainable management of our fisheries resources and take the recommendations to the Ministers Conference.
He also said the three days will give the participant the opportunity to reflect on the theme of the conference and plan the 2018 activities and budget for final adoption by the Conference of Ministers.
He then highlighted the challenges undermining the sector which include: illegal fishing, lack of update data related to the status of our resources and production, weak human capacity to deeply manage the sector and also the countries of the region do not also invest as much as the sector needed to develop.
He challenged the participant to utilize the three days to proposed necessary action plan to be taken to Conference of Ministers to address those challenges and strengthen our collaboration in the region.