36 judges and prosecutors from selected West and Central African Countries through a programme being coordinated by the Embassy of the United States of America in Ghana have paid a working visit to the Port of Tema to familiarize themselves with processes of imports and exports through the Port of Ghana.
The visit is to allow the judges to build a good case in prosecuting fishing and trafficking laws in their respective jurisdictions.
Beneficiary countries of the training programme included Ghana, Togo, Republic of Congo, Gabon and Nigeria.
The Director of Tema Port, Jacob Adorkor who received the delegation told them the Tema Port had gone several changes aimed at making it more efficient.
Karen Bel, 1st Secretary, Regional Environment Office at the US-Embassy, Ghana said several millions of revenue is loss through illegal trafficking on the sea, leaving several resources stolen from countries in that respect, hence, the reason for the US embassy assisting to build the capacities of local legislatures to handle such cases.
She said all of the judges and prosecutors discussed different ways to build stronger cases in order to prevent theft of resources in the West and Central African region.
“Billions of values are being stolen from local economies every year which is very huge, hence, it is incumbent upon the countries in this region to assert their authority over their resources because it’s being stolen from them,” she said.
A Senior Counsel at the US Department of Justice, David S. Gualtieri said illegal fishing and logging have been identified as major problems in the West and Central African region.
The training will improve the capacity of judges and prosecutors in order for them to enforce the laws in their respective countries to deal with those crimes.
He said the training will enable the judges give strong criminal sentence to offenders.
The Judges and Prosecutors toured key installations like surveillance, security, the Fishing Harbour, the new reefer terminal among others.
