According to the representative of fishing boat owners in Rach Gia City, there must be strict sanctions or criminal penalties for violations because the public is the one who intentionally sends the ship to fish in foreign waters, but the ship owner is the owner of the ship. must be responsible
On the followingnoon of February 20, the Steering Committee of the Ministry of National Defense on combating illegal, undeclared and unregulated (IUU) fishing in Kien Giang province held a meeting and exchange with 20 fishing vessel owners and representatives. representing fishing boat owners in Rach Gia City. This is one of the key contents that the IUU Steering Committee of the province implemented during the 180-day peak.
In 2022, Kien Giang province has 11 cases, 14 ships, 154 fishermen arrested and is the leading province in terms of IUU violations. Particularly in the first 2 months of 2023, Kien Giang also had 6 cases, 6 fishing vessels violated foreign waters.
According to fishing boat owners in Rach Gia, in recent years, the seafaring profession has become more and more difficult, when all raw materials have increased from 15-25%, especially fishing gear has increased by 30%, so fishing extremely difficult to catch.
While, each pair of ships built and equipped with equipment to be eligible to go to sea has to spend more than 10 billion VND, but now the value is down to only 5-6 billion VND, there are no buyers for sale.
Leaders of Kien Giang Provincial People’s Committee give gifts to fishermen in Rach Gia. Huu Tuan’s photo
And Mr. Truong Van Ngu, Chairman of the Rach Gia City Fisheries Association, representing the fishing boat owners in Rach Gia City, said that in order to remove the “yellow card” quickly at this time, it is necessary to take measures to freeze debts. , debt rescheduling and interest reduction so that people are not “pressured” to pay their debts, but taking boats to fish leads to violations.
At the same time, Mr. Ngu also suggested that the law should be changed immediately, there must be strict sanctions or criminal penalties for drivers who violate the law by sending ships abroad to fish because it is mainly the crew who deliberately take the ship away. fishing in foreign waters, but the owner of the fishing vessel is responsible, it is difficult to prevent violations. In the long term, the province needs to take measures to avoid destroying aquatic resources.
Mr. Le Quoc Anh – Vice Chairman of Kien Giang Provincial People’s Committee, Deputy Head of IUU Standing Committee, said that in the past time, Kien Giang has organized propaganda once morest illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing. However, fishing vessels in the province still go fishing in foreign waters and are arrested and sanctioned by host countries. This is very dangerous in implementing the recommendations of the European Commission (EC) Inspection Delegation in removing the IUU yellow card.
Mr. Le Quoc Anh also earnestly urged ship owners, captains and fishermen from now until the end of May 2023 not to send ships to illegally exploit foreign waters; strictly abide by the regulations on administrative procedures when participating in fishing activities in the permitted sea areas; cruise monitoring device must be open 24/24.
Along with the commitment to have synchronous solutions to remove difficulties for fishermen; propose to the Government to have a solution to freeze debts, delay debt for ship owners to comply with the policy, it is necessary to strictly handle ship owners who intentionally violate, publish a list of violating ship owners on the mass media – Mr. Le Quoc Anh emphasized.
