Ex-Tory MP accused by UN of encouraging pirates back to sea
A FORMER Conservative government minister has been criticised by the United Nations and accused of tempting Somali pirates back into action after setting up a firm that sells foreign fishing vessels licences to operate off the Somali coastline.
Anglo-Somaliland Resources (ASL) was set up by Sir Tony Baldry, a fisheries minister in the Major government, with local officials. It allows him to sell licences on their behalf in return for a 60 per cent commission.
Critics say the presence of foreign fishing vessels in Somali waters was one of the root causes of the piracy crisis between 2005 and 2012, with local fishermen hijacking foreign vessels in revenge for “stealing” their fish.
Sir Tony struck the ten-year deal with the government of Somaliland, a breakaway region of north-east Somalia that has had self-rule for the last 25 years. The terms of the contract – which
The Sunday Telegraph has seen – were described as “terrible” by fishery conservation experts, who said it gives little back to the government, and offers no detail on fish stock conservation.
Sir Tony, who stepped down as a Conservative MP for Banbury ahead of last year’s elections, is a former chair of the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Somaliland and Somalia and was granted honorary citizenship by the government of Somalia two years ago
ASL was singled out for criticism in a UN Security Council report on piracy, terrorism and arms smuggling in the region which stated that granting li- censes to foreign fishing boats could “lead to the outbreak of violence between foreign fishing crews and local residents, and even to acts of piracy”.
Robert Mazurek, a marine biologist with the US-based environmental charity Secure Fisheries, wrote to ASL last year to express concerns about the terms of the contract.
“Theoretically, the reason for the company to take such a high percentage of the fees is that it is offering monitoring control and surveillance of the fleet” he said. “But that is the bit that is difficult to control, and there isn’t any detail on the limits of the number of vessels, or gear type or anything else.”
Sir Tony strongly denied that appraisal. He said the point of the contract was to help market licences abroad – something the Somaliland government had difficulty doing. He declined to say how much the licences cost, but said since the deal’s signing in August he had failed to sell a single one due to foreign firms’ security fears.
“If we wanted to sell licences to cowboy operators, we could easily have done so, whereas in fact we have sold none – I think that shows you that we want to attract only responsible operators to Somaliland,” he said.