KARACHI: The mess created by the government at the Fishermen Cooperative Society (FCS) could negatively affect the upcoming visit of the acting EU ambassador to the harbour, it emerged on Sunday.

Stefano Gatto, sources say, plans to see the auction halls, fishing boats as well as processing plants during his visit scheduled for Aug 20.

The repair, cleanliness and maintenance of the auction halls is the responsibility of the FCS, whose board, the chief minister announced last month, was being dissolved and an instead an administrator being appointed.

Both decisions, however, couldn’t be notified even after a lapse of more than 20 days since the elected members of the FCS board, who were not allowed to work by the last FCS management, are already in court against a recent government order. The hearing is scheduled for Aug 11.

The order was issued by the cooperation department (with which the society is registered) that declared an FCS managing committee as null and void.

“We had to step in to manage the day-to-day affairs of the fish auction market as the fishing season has begun after a break. Besides, we realised that if we let the situation continue, poor management of the harbour can adversely affect our exports and bring a bad name to the country,” explained Saleem Deedat, fishermen representative elected to the FCS board in 2012.

Previously, the EU had slapped a ban on imports of fish products from Pakistan in 2007 after EU inspectors found systemic enforcement failures and serious deficiencies in the sanitary quality of the fish.

The illegally appointed FCS chairman had been out of the country for five to six months while key directors, including the vice chairman, were in the Rangers’ custody on corruption charges, he added.

The action of the elected members (including Habibullah Baloch, Ramzan Mallah, Pir Mohammad Peru, Haji Khan Mir and Javed Younus), he said, was according to the FCS bylaws that allowed members to form a committee in the absence of the chairman and vice chairman.

The success of the committee, according to Mr Deedat, could be gauged from the fact that it managed to earn more than Rs20m in July even when there was a ban on fishing.

“Only shrimp catch is officially banned in July so there are boats going for fishing in this season and we earned an amount through regular commission the FCS receives from fishermen bringing catch to the harbour,” he pointed out. Mr Deedat added that the government recently stopped the committee to work and the body was in no position to pay staff salaries.

Fishermen representatives, he said, approached the chief secretary twice over this issue but nothing helped. Finally, the government action was challenged in the court this month.

To a question regarding the government announcement relating to the dissolution of the FCS board, Asif Bhatti, another fishermen representative on the board, said: “The government can’t dissolve the FCS board because the court stay against the chairman’s order of suspending the elected members still continues.”

According to him, the downfall of the FCS started in 2008 when the FCS board was dissolved and instead an administrator was appointed by the government. The matter went to the court and the government had to hold elections for the 15-member FCS board (comprising seven elected fishermen representatives and eight government nominees) on the court orders in 2012.

“Unfortunately, the government, instead of appointing its officials on the board as was the past practice, nominated private individuals with criminal records that opened the door to corruption and other malpractices. The society set-up for the welfare of fishermen did nothing for poor fishing communities.

“Last year’s illegal appointment of Dr Nisar Morai as chairman further deteriorated matters. Dr Morai appointed his hand-picked man as the vice chairman and suspended the membership of the elected members and announced to hold board elections,” said Mr Bhatti.

The members went to court and got a stay order against his directives in February 2014 but the chairman refused to let them work for the society.

Now with the chairman out of the country for several months and other key officials taken into the Rangers’ custody, the elected fishermen representatives recently set up a committee on June 22 to run the society’s affairs. However, they were stopped from working by the deputy registrar of the cooperation department through an order.

Last year, according to fishermen representatives, they also sent a letter to PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari in which he was informed about the massive irregularities going on at the harbour and the declining popularity of the party.

“The government should reactivate the FCS by sending its officials on the board that could initiate an inquiry into irregularities,” said Mr Deedat, adding that the nomination of a navy official as government nominee (later to be elected as chairman) would do good to the FCS given the past experience with retired commodore Syed Tayyab Naqvi who fishermen praised highly.

It is important to recall here that the cooperation department and the Karachi Fisheries Harbour Authority (KFHA) had sent letters to the chief secretary a month ago with a request to replace private persons on the FCS board with government officials.

In order to improve the FCS affairs and bring financial discipline, the letters had suggested that the present eight government-nominated directors of the FCS might be replaced with government functionaries, such as fisheries and livestock secretary, law secretary, Karachi commissioner, registrar of cooperatives and the KFHA managing director.

However, this suggestion was ignored.

Upon contact, KFHA managing director Mohammad Ramzan Awan said it was important that the FCS was properly run especially in view of the upcoming visit of the EU delegation.

“Though repair, cleanliness and maintenance of the fish auction halls are not our responsibility, we will try our best to improve the harbour conditions during this time,” he said, adding that the KFHA had recently sent a notice to the FCS to cancel their lease agreement over non-payment of dues.

Faisal Iftikhar representing the Pakistan Fisheries Exporters Association said that Pakistani fish exports to the EU was of small volume as only one company was currently exporting the catch to the EU, even though two companies were allowed access to the EU market in 2013.

“Companies generally get a better price from China and other countries. The present EU delegation visit aims at exploring the sectors where the EU could extend its support to Pakistan before holding a meeting with their counterparts in September,” he said.

The FCS yearly generated about Rs2bn and could play a vital role in improving hygienic conditions at the harbour, besides helping poor fishing communities. Unfortunately, the society couldn’t serve its purpose because the government itself was involved in malpractices, he said.

Published in Dawn, August 10th, 2015

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