Opposition to East Coast fishing boats going West
Published on: Tuesday, March 21, 2017
Kota Kinabalu: Fishing boat owners here are against plans by several boat operators from the East Coast to turn to West Coast fishing grounds following security concerns due to repeated kidnappings by southern Philippine militants in which some victims were behead for failure to pay ransom. They said the application of the owners of 16 purse seine fishing boats from Lahad Datu, Tawau and Sandakan would exhaust the animal feed processing mills and cause fish prices to tumble. "Not only are we faced with inconsistencies in the supply of subsidised fuel for the last 10 years, their presence here would only have negative implications.
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"The more fishing boats in the West Coast will mean the fish market will be oversupplied and break fish prices in the city," said a fishing boat owner who represented the fishing boat owners, here, Jacky Ho, at a press conference with 28 fishing boat owners and operators present, Monday. It was alleged that applications had arrived at the Fisheries Department from the East Coast boat operators and are awaiting approval. If approved, he said 45 boat owners who run a total of 120 boats in the seas off the city would experience losses due to a drop in seafood prices over imminent oversupply. He pointed out having 16 more purse seine boats would increase the number to 46 such boats here, adding that the designs of such boats were usually larger than a trawler and would be able to catch and land more fish.
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"But security is no longer a valid reason as the Deputy Chief Minister Datuk Seri Yahya Hussin who is also the State Agriculture and Food Industries Minister has given his assurance on security to boat owners there. "Of late, there had been more boats there going out to sea and business as usual without any problem," he said.
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"Why do they need to come to the West Coast?" From April to December last year, 22 individuals comprising the crew or skipper of fishing boats in the East Coast had been kidnapped in 10 reported incidents. Stay up-to-date by following Daily Express’s Telegram channel.
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