Akufo Addo Visits Fishing Community In Tema

The 2012 Presidential Candidate of the New Patriotic Party (NPP), Nana Akufo-Addo, took his listening campaign tour to the Tema Fishing Harbour when he began his tour of the Tema East Constituency. He spent a lot of time touring the entire fishing harbour and listening to their concerns, and expressed concern about the current state of affairs there. In a statement issued by his campaign team, he called for appropriate steps to be taken immediately to curtail the problems confronting the fishing community.

He toured the beach, the boat yard, the cold stores and the fish markets in the harbour, and was told about the myriad of problems that the fishing communities currently faced and how all those problems made life difficult for them, the statement added. According to the statement, the fishermen, who sounded frustrated, took turns to speak about the problems and concerns that they had, all of them condemning the Mills administration for neglecting them and refusing to pay attention to their plight. They complained about the cost of outboard motors, which they said had shot up drastically since the assumption of office by the NDC, it stated. Tettey, a fisherman, said, “The NDC government under the leadership of President Mills has been very insensitive to the fishing community because the prices of the equipment that we work with have all gone up astronomically. What is even frustrating is that when you are able to get a catch in spite of all the difficulties, the sale of the fish too becomes a problem because people can’t buy.”

The statement also said that the fishermen also complained about frequent shortages of pre-mix fuel and how it was hampering their work. The market women, mainly fish traders, were not left out as they also took turns to pour out their frustrations. They said business had become very slow since the NDC took over power in 2009 and pleaded with Nana Addo to introduce programmes that would lessen the hardships that they were currently facing under the NDC. “We are very confident that 2012 is your year and we will vote massively for you”, they are reporteed by the campaign team to have said. Nana Addo also visited the agency department of the Tema harbour to interact with Freight Forwarders and Clearing Agents. They lamented the high influx of foreigners in the trade and called for a proper regulation that would curb the problem because “it is really frustrating us” they said.

Nana Addo then visited the Tema Community One market where a large number of people, together with traders who abandoned their wares, mobbed him amidst singing and dancing. Shaking hands with him, they complained about increasing hardships, shortage of LPG, high electricity tariffs, collapsing social interventions that were introduced by the NPP, emphasising the NHIS and the School Feeding Programme.Nana Addo also toured the various lorry stations in the constituency to familiarise himself with the concerns of the commercial drivers.

Category: Politics