Fisheries Minister Flirts With Mass Food Poisoning With Hasty Post Mortem On Fish Death

Mavis Hawa Koomson, the Fisheries and Aquaculture Minister In a rather outrageous diagnosis of the thousands of fishes that washed ashore dead on beaches on some coastal areas in the country claims the fishes died of stress.

Even though fingers are pointing at possible nefarious activities of Chinese commercial fishing vessels that had monopolised deep sea fishing in the country’s territorial waters using dangerous fishing methods, the Fisheries Minister who could not define fish farming during her vetting has proposed the rather curious cause of the mass death of marine life.

The incident that occurred a few days ago, saw thousands of fishes and ocean mammals such as dolphins washed ashore bloated and dead.

In a Facebook post, the Minister claims that the dead fish which was washed ashore at Osu died out of stress.

“According to Dr. Peter Zidda, a fish health Specialist of the Fisheries Commission, further pathological investigations on the gills of the fish kills are ongoing and any new development will be made public,” she adds.

With the government already on high alert to ensure that the dead fish do not find their way into the market, Hawa Koomson’s rushed post mortem is almost like an invitation to unscrupulous persons who have already begun smuggling the fish away to throw further caution to the wind.

Per her post, analyses done on the fish so far is only preliminary, but the Fisheries Minister thought it wise to rush to town and announce that the fear that the fish may have been poisoned may not be valid and thus those celebrating a windfall of fishes could go ahead and consume it or sell them to unsuspecting consumers..

Already, some Ghanaians on social media who have pointed out the recklessness of Hawa Koomson’s “okro mouth,” have also been asking about the potential consequences if further analyses show that the fishes had died from poisoning with dangerous chemicals?

Over the weekend, tons of dead fish and dolphins washed ashore at beaches around the country including at Osu in Accra, Keta in the Volta Region and other places in the Central Region.

Within hours of the mystery fish kill, some of the dolphins had gone missing with the public worried that some of the dead fish will be smuggled into fish markets.

In response, government agencies such as the Food and Drugs Authority have been warning from the rooftops that any person who smuggles the dead fish into markets will be penalized.

The FDA has even deployed people at markets to ensure the contamination does not happen, while the government carries out laboratory analyses.

It is in the wake of all these emergency efforts that the sector Minister has rushed to tell the world that the fish may have died of something that may not really be dangerous to human health – stress.