Here’s a fish tale

Karachi Fish Harbour shall remain close for landing facilities of all catches of inland and marine seafood. This was decided in a meeting held at Karachi Fisheries Harbour Authority (KFHA). Presiding over the meeting Abdul Ghani Jokhio, Managing Director, KFHA said that during the last couple of months we altogether had number of meetings on implementation of law on illegal nets and observe ban on catch in July. Finally he added Government had issued two Notifications one for relaxation in mandatory seasonal ban on fishing in the month of June thus in July catch shall be strictly prohibited and only 55 mm mesh size for fish and 25 mm for shrimps shall be allowed. Mr. Jokhio thanked MFD, FCS, STOFA, MSA, Coast Guards, Moleholders, bonafied fishermen for their gracious support and courage to work out a policy. Shaukat Hussain, Director General, MFD informed the meeting that in fact this achievement is a great service to the fishermen and in the national interest once we succeed in its objective, the current and future generation will reap the benefits. According to decisions taken in the meeting, customs authorities would not issue Port Clearance to any fishing boat during ban season. No stakeholder will sell or buy fish / shrimp during the ban season, otherwise catch shall be confiscated and penalty shall be imposed besides cancellation of fishing license, registration of boat and export registration. Seafood processors shall ensure that they would not buy any fishery product from 1st to 31st July. They shall also declare stock stored in their respective Chill rooms as on 30th June 2012, by 4th July 2012 to the MFD and KFHA. To implement the operation on seasonal ban and banned net, joint inspection teams consisting Fisheries Department, KFHA, MSA, Coast Guards, STOFA and representative of fishermen would monitor the activities and work round the clock. The code-end net will be available for fishermen in the next fishing season starting from August 2012 and only fishing boats carrying approved net shall be allowed for fishing. The cost of code-end net initially will be borne by KFHA, FCS & Pakistan Fisheries Exporters Association and to be recovered from boat owners upon their return from fishing. The meeting was attended by Director General, MFD, Deputy Director MSA, MLO Coast Guards, Deputy Director Sindh Fisheries, Representatives of Pakistan Customs, FCS, STOFA, Moleholders, bonafied fishermen.