Africa-Press – Tanzania. THE government is looking forward to amend the fishing act in a bid to make it cope with the market demand as well address the illegal fishing challenges.
Moreover it has announced to strengthen ties with the neighbouring countries as well as regional blocs in ensuring environmental protection and assuring consumers of quality products.
Deputy Minister for Livestock and Fisheries, Mr Abdallah Ulega gave the assurance in Parliament here on Friday when responding to a question posed by Ms Fakharia Shomari Khamis (Special Seats-CCM) on the measures that are put in place to address illegal fishing in the country.
The Deputy Minister said it is true that illegal fishing is among the challenges facing the sector but the government is determined to ensure the problem is addressed.
He said they have conducted a number of awareness campaign to all stakeholders to educate them on the danger of illegal fishing to the environment and their wellbeing. He said the education also covers the negative effect of illegal fishing in connection to shortage of fishes.
Mr Ulega said they are also engaging the communities in fishing areas to be part and parcel of the campaign against illegal fishing so that they can keep enjoying the resources under the supervision of village leaders and councils.
On deep sea fishing, the Deputy Minister said they have strengthened the systems of monitoring and controlling known as Vessels Monitoring System (VMS) under META Fisheries which has been in operational since 2010-2015.
All vessels that conduct deep sea fishing under the country’s territory have been logged with the antenna known as Argos for easily monitoring to ensure that they adhere to fishing procedure.
He said the government is improving the Information and Communication technologies to easy control, monitoring and security of the fishing sector by coming up with a new system known as “Themis Web” which has a high capacity to keep control and monitoring of the fishing vessels regardless of the security antenna fixed.
In the past five years, Mr Ulega said one fishing vessel was nabbed for illegal fishing in deep sea and the matter was brought before the court and the owner was ordered to pay 1bn/- or 20-years jail term.
