Fisheries Ministry to purchase vessel monitoring equipment

Move to prevent EU imposing sanctions on our fish exports

The Fisheries Ministry is to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on Wednesday with a Denmark based company for seven million Euros (approximately Rs. 114 million) to purchase vessel monitoring system machines and other technical instruments in keeping with a European Union (EU) recommendation.

Officials of Visma Fisheries Solutions will be in Colombo next week to sign the deal with the fisheries authorities, Fisheries Department Director Nimal Hettiarachchi said.

He said Cabinet had approved the MoU.

"Initially we have decided to fit some 1,000 fishing vessels with monitoring systems as this requirement is one of the EU conditions," he said.

Last week, President Mahinda Rajapaksa directed the ministries of Fisheries, Justice and External Affairs to work together to prevent the ban on fish exports to EU countries being imposed from January 15.

The Sunday Times learns that Dr. Rohan Perera, former Legal Advisor to the External Affairs Ministry has been told to assist in engaging the EU officials regarding the issue. Dr. Perera has already been in contact with the EU.

Joseph Peter, a member of the National Fisheries Federation said no final decision has been taken regarding purchasing vessel monitoring system (VMS) equipment but pointed out that a VMS machine can be purchased for around Rs. 165,000 in the open market whereas the ministry proposed to provide the same machine for Rs. 500,000.

"To monitor the boats at sea, monitoring towers will be needed. That’s why hidden charges are included for other technical equipment too. We can't afford that," he said.

However a Ministry spokesman said the claim was not correct as the VMS does not require any towers unlike the VHF radio communication system.

He said that claims made by the fishermen’s associations that eight units were fitted on to selected vessels were also not correct as the equipment has yet to be cleared by the Defence Ministry and the Telecommunications Regulatory Commission (TRC).