5 - 11 July 2001

Fishermen called for minister’s resignation three times

• Claim they have no faith in him
• Feel betrayed by the government

by Ivan Brincat

The Koperattiva Nazzjonali tas-Sajd, the National Fisheries Co-operative, has called on the minister of agriculture and fisheries to resign three times because they do not have faith in him and because it believes the government is not acting in fishermen’s interest.
The cooperative’s secretary general, Raymond Bugeja told The Malta Business Weekly: “We have requested Minister Ninu Zammit to resign three times so far but he is still there. We simply have no faith in him.” Although the so-called “tuna wars” escalated late last week the trouble had long been brewing.
Mr Bugeja said problems began with the government last February when the cooperative had decided to administer the tender for the export of tuna fish caught by Maltese fishermen. Meanwhile the Board of Fisheries has not yet been appoin-ted by the Department of Fisheries after the resignation of the members of the cooperative from the board. “They have still not appointed the board which is a consultative one and is there to advise the minister,” Mr Bugeja said.
Last year the tender was administered from the ministry through the Department of Fisheries.
“There were two offers for an export license. They were practically of the same value but one was more advantageous than the other. As soon as there was the first default, the government allocated the tender to Azzopardi Fisheries without the co-operative seeing the contract for two weeks. It was only because we called to see the contract that we were shown it,” Mr Bugeja said.
He said the cooperative were not happy at all with the way things went in 2000. “So this year we decided to administer the export of tuna directly using the same conditions. We issued a call for tenders to award an exclusive contract for the export of tuna,” Mr Bugeja said.
All procedures were carried out and a totally independent committee was set up to examine the most advantageous offer. The cooperative had issued a call for offers from companies with an interest in purchasing the fish between 20 December and 17 January. It received proposals from five different companies. Mr Bugeja said that Spanish firm Ricardo Fuentes offered the highest price per kilo which was around 50 cents more per kilo than what Azzopardi Fisheries (which came second) offered. Ricardo Fuentes is Europe’s largest fish company having tuna fish farms in Spain and Croatia. Therefore the adjudication went to Fuentes.
Mr Bugeja said that Azzopardi Fisheries made a second offer after losing the tender. “The fishermen rejected an intervention by the minister to award the contract to Azzopardi Fisheries because the tender had been carried out in a transparent manner. We did not accept this proposal.”
Mr Bugeja added after this episode, the government decided arbitrarily to issue an export license to another cooperative which only represented one fisherman through its agreement with Azzopardi Fisheries.
“The government gave a pro-rata licence allowing us to export 270 tonnes of tuna with the other co-operative, Ghadqa Koperattiva tas-Sajd being given 15 tonnes.”
Mr Bugeja however states that there is no way of enforcing this. “Instead of trying to unite the fishermen, the government tried to cause a dispute.”
He claims that Azzopardi Fisheries also tried to poach some of the fishermen from the cooperative because this second offer was slightly higher than that of Fuentes.
“It was for this reason that the tuna fishing season started on a sorry note.”
The export of tuna to Japan is deemed to be very lucrative. This year, the highest price a tuna was sold was for an incredible Lm80,000. The average price it is sold in Japan is around Lm15 to Lm20 per kilo.
“We however sell the fish fully and the exporters remove around 25 per cent. An average tuna would sell for around Lm15,000 on the Japanese market,” he said.