As Sierra Leone strives to advance its position in the global industrial revolution land scape to enhance sustainable development in the country, the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources (MFMR) in the bid to scale up productivity in the fisheries sector through the recording of accurate fish catch data, have received form the World Bank, through the GEF-Additional Financing project 80 iPads with Memory cards and 25 Android mobile phones.
The items were procured by the World Bank through the GEF Additional Finance (GEF-AF) project in the office of the West Africa Regional Fisheries Program (WARFP) Coordinator, to enhance accurate and effective data management to stimulate economic growth in the sector, as the sustainability management of the country’s aquatic resource largely depends on reliability of the data collected onboard fishing vessels and in fish landing sites by fisheries observers and enumerators respectively.
Over the years there has been challenges for both the Ministry and Observers to function effectively caused by diverse issues ranging from: maintaining log books at sea and MFMR-HQ, and delays in submission of completed observer logbooks, which is normally associated with data falsification and misplacement making it very difficult for the ministry to sustainably manage the nation’s fish resources.
Presenting the items to the Hon. Minister of Fisheries and team in the conference room of the Ministry, the WARFP National Coordinator (Dr. Sallieu Sankoh) said the items were bought with funds from the World Bank funded West Africa Regional Fisheries Program in Sierra Leone (GEF-Additional Financing Project) in accordance with the government of Sierra Leone laid down procurement procedures to assure due diligence, upon the request of the Ministry, giving brief description of the said items, that the iPads and mobile phone devices can accommodate huge amount of data at sea or in the fish landing sites and that this data can be transmitted remotely into the Ministry’s server using mobile phones network. The coordinator added that the 128 GB memory cards will also aid the storage of data and other useful information’s for later down load for landing sites or fishing grounds where there is no mobile phone network. The coordinator further added that the Tablets and Phones also have capacity to geo reference the data that is transmitted into the server, so Observers and enumerators who fail to go sea or the fish landing sites and enter fish catches from their homes into the phones and tablets would be identified and punished for dishonesty.
Giving a brief statement, the Hon. Deputy Minister of Fisheries (Ibrahim Turay) said accurate and efficient data collection is pivotal in the rational management of Sierra Leone’s fish resource, and therefore requires huge material and Financial support, he reiterated that data collected from fishing vessels and in the fish landing sites will be recorded into a server analyzed professionally to enhance the sustainable management of the country’s aquatic resource.
Receiving the items, the Hon. Minister (Emma Kowa Jalloh) thanked World Bank and the national coordinator, WARFP, for the support, and assured them of the ministry commitment in utilizing the items for the intended purpose, she said accurate data management has been a major challenge, and that due to lack of appropriate data management tools have hindered the effective management of the country’s fish and fisheries resource, she said the iPads and mobile phones will be programmed just for data collection and will be distributed to with assigned unique security codes to prevent miss use or tempering.
The handing over ceremony was chaired the Permanent Secretary (Mrs. Elizabeth Hawa Ellie), and in attendance was the Director of Fisheries (Mrs. Kadijatu Jalloh), Cross section of Scientific data Observers, Statisticians in the Ministry, Mead of the Marine Artisanal Unit and other Senior Staff of the Ministry and of WARFP.