It has emerged from the corridors of the Ministry of Fisheries and Aquaculture that the immediate past National Democratic Congress (NDC) administration misused a grant of $53 million from the World Bank earmarked to improve the fishing industry.
The amount was earmarked for improving fishing projects under the West Africa Regional Fisheries Projects by setting up processing facilities at the landing beaches and structures to improve the industry.
The Minister of Fisheries and Aquaculture, Mrs Elizabeth Afoley Quaye, made the figure known in an interview with the Daily Heritage when she met with a delegation from the World Bank yesterday.
“For the first phase of the project, the World Bank gave us $53 million (under the previous administration), but we could not account for the use of the money for the project. There were several components of the West African Regional Fisheries Projects (WARFP) to set up fish processing facility, to build landing beaches, to restock our depleted fish stock and to put down certain structures to enable general improvement in our fish production.
“But, unfortunately, the previous government could not achieve those results, so the World Bank Country Director called us into a meeting and complained that when the contract for the then coordinator of the project ended they realized that the major objective had not been achieved.”
World Bank angry
According to her, the World Bank, though suggested to the then minister not to extend the contract of the project coordinator, she went ahead to unilaterally extend it and this development got the World Bank angry.
“…so when they called us into a meeting they suggested to us that if we could remove the coordinator and bring a new face, then they could look at us the second time. And also, if we could cure the programme by putting up certain things in place, though the period for the implementation of the programme is almost coming to an end, within the short term (December this year) we could do a few things that could really tell them that we are ready to improve upon the WARFP. Then of course, they will reconsider Ghana for the second face and support us with some funding.”
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