The Fisheries Committee for the West Central Gulf of Guinea (FCWC) and the Technical Team of the West Africa Task Force (WATF), comprising TMT and Stop Illegal Fishing (SIF), are holding a 10-day Standard Operating Procedures (SOP) consultation workshop with the representatives across multiple Government agencies involved in fisheries port controls in Tema, Ghana.

The workshop has been organized to provide technical assistance for the development of SOPs by the Ports Task Force Ghana (PTFG) around the processing of AREPs and the inspection of visiting foreign fishing vessels. The SOPs are being developed as part of capacity-building efforts to systematize Port State Measures-specific processes and procedures (risk assessment, risk analysis, fishery vessel inspection, port inspection, and land inspection).

The Technical Team is working with a smaller working group of representatives from the Ghana Government agencies most involved in the implementation of the SOPs – the MCS division of the Fisheries Commission, the Ghana Ports and Harbours Authority (GPHA) and the Ghana Maritime Authority (GMA) – guiding participants to firstly revise draft SOPs, then test them in situ with an inspection team at Tema port, and to finalize them after necessary adjustments.

The workshop is being used as an opportunity to further build upon clarification of the interagency roles, risk factors to be considered, anticipated workload and important operational aspects of port use.

The final draft SOPs will be shared with the members of the Task Force for further review and input ahead of their presentation at the next meeting of the Ghana National inter-agency MCS Working Group for validation.