Serious and outrageous violations presented in a parliament report:Fish companies’ scandal [Archives:2003/667/Local News]

Sanaa, September 9 – The report presented by the agriculture and fisheries committee of the parliament last Sunday has shown many violations committed by several companies working in the fishery field in the Republic of Yemen.
The report, which was a result of an extensive on the field survey that covered Aden, Abyan, Lahj, Hadramout, Al-Mahara, Al-Hodeidah, Taiz, and Hajja to seek information and facts about what the fishery sector of Yemen is suffering from, revealed names of five companies that committed violations in the Arabian Sea. Those companies that operated under the supervision of the Fishery Wealth Office of the Aden governorate have committed 181 violations. Those violations were in the form of having fishing ships and boats of the said companies throw away around 93,250 tons of dead fish to the sea.
In the Abyan governorate however, 17 fishing boats have thrown on 13 April 2003 alone a huge amount of dead fish along the coast of Abyan and the approximate amount was estimated at 150 tons. The report said the boats belonged to local and foreign companies.
As for the Hadramout governorate, the report confirmed that it counted 195 violations by local and foreign companies. “Al-Mahara governorate however witnessed 40 violations by three companies” the report said.
The report confirmed that the violations are committed in similar fashion throughout the country in the form of throwing away dead fish to the sea or using illegal fishing nets that contain metal chains on their edges in order to grab the largest amount of fish possible.
However, the report indicated the seriousness of the situation by saying that such violations would result in the diminishing of fish reservoir and depriving the state from potential hard currency income. Furthermore, they would also result in the inability of thousands of normal fishermen from fishing traditionally to earn their source of living. It would also result in increase in the price of fish in local markets because of their decreasing number.
The report recommended not to renew any contracts for commercial fishing companies and stopping the activities of the violating companies and forcing them to pay suitable compensation to traditional fishermen and to the state, which has suffered from the mentioned violations tremendously.
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