We gave the license for Vessels, what advantage do we have!

The government of Somalia gave fishing license to the number of chinese vessels fishing in Somali territorial sea, the biggest question that every person is asking is, what do we exchange to our fish and what prevents  these ships to transgress the rules and regulations as well as the agreement, another surprising things in this issue is, standardly, when you are giving license to a fishing vessel you should do the following by keeping your interests; the gears, species and fishing area must already be clear and there should be inspector on board who gives daily report to the responsible institution even if we agree those who would monitor as Somalis?. Sometimes the vessels should Moure to the ports for taking basic things like fuel and so on from the country that gave the license, they may argue the vessels are fearing pirates and we do not have big ports, is it acceptable justification?. The fishing vessels must sometimes be puzzled to hire employees from the country giving the license to get employment for its citizens. How can a government give license to the ship/vessel that they cannot control its movements, activities and catch if it misleads the agreement?!

I have heard that these ships give $1million each per year and nobody explained to the people the way they put this charge on the ships and the criteria they followed. The government did not follow any of the procedures of license offer and another surprising thing is that most of the people are silent on this issue. I have huge concern about the damage these ships can cause to the marine life and Environment because they may employ gears that can destroy the ecosystem including coral reefs as well as they may sweep all the things in the sea including sea grass, sea weeds and small organisms furthermore, they may dump the different wastes that they bring  from wherever since no one is aware their activities this will lastly affect to artisanal fishers.

Government institutions which provided these licenses must be accountable and asked why they have easily legalized for foreign vessels which are degrading the sea. I would call for the new parliament to call the minister of fisheries and marine resources of FGS to ask more about this issue otherwise the coming minister would again give more licenses and bring more vessels regardless of the procedures and rules.

By Hassan Abdullahi Mao