THE Minister for Agriculture, Livestock and Fisheries, Dr Charles Tizeba, has said all licensed ships fishing in the country’s territorial water will be discharging their cargo at the Dar es Salaam Port effective next month.
Apparently, the government has suspended temporarily licensing of fishing ships to allow expansion of a docking place at the port where all fish products will be discharged.
According to the minister, the decision is in line with enabling the current licensed vessels offload their cargo and alternatively increase availability of the product in the local markets.
Dr Tizeba said this during a visit at the port yesterday to observe preparations for allowing large fishing boats to discharge their cargo at the country’s largest water entry port.
“Preparations are ongoing well to allow ships to acquire a place to discharge fish.
The government has been losing huge amounts of revenue and fish products owing to limited space,” he said.He explained that the decision to suspend licence is to allow few ships to be able to dock and dis-charge fish products.
“We issue licence to fisher-men; limiting them to only one species of fish.
However, if they catch other types; they walk away with it since there is no place to bring them ... from now on we will make sure they bring the entire cargo,” Dr Tizeba pointed out.
The minister was concerned to note that the price of fish prod-ucts was extremely high in some markets in the country, denying the people of fish supplements in their daily diet.
He emphasised that after the plan goes into action, it will help increase availability of fish in the local markets.
Acting Dar es Salaam Port Manager Mr Nelson Mlali said that as from next month, the port will be ready to accommodate large fishing vessels.
He added that all the required facilities are in place and that the fishermen have been shown the location as well as procedures for offloading the fish at the area.
Mr Mlali noted that the port was getting itself ready to meet the demand for facilitating dis-charge of fish.
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