President Ibrahim Mohamed Solih on Wednesday spoke against completely privatizing skipjack tuna fisheries.
Campaigning on the fishing island of Gaaf Dhaal Faresmaathoda, President Solih said previous administrations were to blame for creating problems with the fisheries industry that could not be fixed at the same time.
“I still don’t believe that there’s a future in leaving skipjack tuna fisheries completely to the private sector,” he said.
It is the government’s responsibility to ensure the timely purchase of fresh fish catch and to develop facilities and human resources for the industry, the president said.
Privatization of the fisheries industry was a policy of the former Maldivian Democratic Party (MDP) government but it did not produce favorable results, he said.
“Our previous government’s policy at the time was privatization. Privatizing and allowing private parties to buy and export fish. However, I don’t see that the private sector has done adequate work in buying and exporting skipjack tuna,” the president said.
Stressing the need for developing the facilities and skilled labor needed for the fisheries industry, the president said his administration plans to make the indebted Maldives Industrial Fisheries Company (MIFCO) profitable and sell shares to the public.
At a function held to mark Fishermen’s Day last year, the president pledged to abolish exclusivity for fish-purchasing companies and suggested that Maldivians should have more power to determine the price of fish in order to increase export earnings.
However, increasing the participation of the private sector in fisheries was a pledge of the MDP’s 2018 manifesto.
Speaking in Gemanafushi in the neighbouring Gaaf Alif atoll later in the day, Solih pledged to build a cold storage facility on the fishing island and repeated criticism of former governments' failure to develop the industry.
“There’s nothing much other than the Felivaru fish factory and Kooddoo fisheries complex. Fisheries has not been expanded to the extent that it should have been,” he said.
