KARACHI – The provincial Fisheries and Livestock Department informed the Sindh Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Wednesday that the department is unable to free the province’s public water bodies from the control of influential people despite the abolishment of the contract system on fishing. Provincial Fisheries and Livestock Department Secretary Muhammad Laiq Memon told the PAC that the Sindh Assembly had abolished the contract system on fishing in public waters during its session held last January.
The civil society as well as the fishermen’s community welcomed the decision and appreciated the lawmakers’ move. However, the legislation by the assembly is ineffective where public waters are under the control of influential people, the secretary told the PAC members. PAC Chairman Jam Tamachi Unnar expressed his annoyance on the issue and said that the department should take steps to ensure that the law is implemented properly and contract system on fishing in public waters practically abolished. The PAC also rejected a proposal by the secretary that the outstanding dues to people on account of fishing contracts should be waived off due to the damages suffered during the last year’s floods. “This is public money and it should be recovered,” the PAC chairman said.
The PAC chairman also took serious notice of the government departments’ lack of cooperation with the committee, and directed his staff to send a complaint about this to Chief Secretary Subhan Memon. The directives came after the Fisheries and Livestock Department’s officers failed to provide audit record to the PAC in time. The PAC settled only three audit paras pertaining to the Livestock and Fisheries Department and deferred 11 others.
There were total 14 audit paras that the PAC had to discuss, but it deferred the majority of them because the department had provided official record to the committee too late.
