The Director-General of the Ghana Maritime Authority (GMA), Thomas Kofi Alonsi has indicated that government is putting in place adequate measures to tackle the increasing spate of piracy attacks in the Gulf of Guinea.
The Gulf of Guinea over the years has become a global epicentre for piracy according to the International Maritime Bureau’s (IMB) latest global piracy report.
In the first three months of 2021, the IMB Piracy Reporting Centre (PRC) reported 38 piracy incidents, 33 vessels boarded, two attempted attacks, two vessels fired upon, and one vessel hijacked with the kidnapping of 40 crew members.
However, providing updates on the measures rolled out by government to tackle the menace at the Information Minister’s media briefing in Accra on Wednesday, Mr. Alonsi said government has made significant investment in the maritime sector such as the acquisition of pirate boats for surveillance to patrol the country’s high seas to ward off pirates.
He said despite this investment, the authority itself has embarked on several interventions to deal with the menace.
“The Authority together with other coastal states have come together to find ways and means of curtailing the incidence of piracy within our territorial waters”, the GMA boss said.
One of such measures, he pointed out, is an arrangement by all West African coastal states through the ECOWAS Maritime Security Architecture Stakeholders Meeting in Cotonou, Benin Republic to bring maritime security and safety to the Gulf of Guinea.
He added that the GMA has held consultative meetings with the Naval Command on joint patrols on Ghana’s territorial waters and subsequently engaged various Maritime Security Stakeholders, all in a bid to deal with the incidents of piracy in the Gulf of Guinea.
