The same old story: ‘Saiko’ practices and coastal livelihoods in Ghana's small-scale fisheries

This paper contributes to the literature on IUU in the fishing industry and its implications for fishery governance and marine sustainability. We do this by exploring how illegal transshipment at sea – a practice popularly known in Ghana as saiko – has transformed over time given the relative difficulty in achieving a ‘zero' IUU at sea. Of particular interest also are the reasons why saiko has persisted despite its illegal status, how different groups have been structured differently to benefited from current saiko practices and the resultant contestations thereof. To answer these questions, we conducted 36 in-depth interviews with relevant stakeholders within the Ghanaian fishery industry, particularly Elmina. While the assumption was that state regulation has drastically reduced saiko nation-wide, the argument is made here that the state has rather emerged as an important actor in the strategic (re)positioning of saiko without careful treatment of the highly uneven and asymmetrical power relations in the fishing industry. The paper therefore calls for a more transparent governance of the fisheries resources where all members of the community would have equal access.