By Joseph Lamin Kamara
Head of rural development and environment section of the European Union delegation in Sierra Leone says his organisation never banned fish from Sierra Leone from entering the European market.
Stefano Sotgia told Politico that what happened was that the country was never among those certified to export fish products to the largest trading block in the world.
He said the EU set criteria for its export certificate for countries, adding that “Sierra Leone has not been active to get particular direction from the delegation” in helping it acquire the certificate.
“If we had a specific request from [the Sierra Leone] government we would have analyzed the situation,” said Sotgia, adding that “a country needs to handle its unhygienic, illegal, unreported and unregulated fishing methods for it to be granted the export certificate”.
After all, he went on, European vessels had been fishing in Sierra Leone, because they had met the full EU export requirements.
Meanwhile, the project development manager at Précon Food Management, Jeffrey MaCarthy said they had been consulted to influence government policies to help them meet EU marketing standards which he said they hoped to do by urging government to enact food laws.
“There is room for growth in the fishing sector,” he said, adding that they were making sure that industrial fishing companies did all necessary lab tests on fish as well as insist on water control tests. He said based on their assessment of the fishing conditions in the country, they would expect to invite EU to come in by the first half of next year to assess progress the country would have made.
MaCarthy said they were working to change the situation, but that local councils and other public institutions like the ministries of health and fisheries needed to do a lot more in terms of environmental sanitisation and infrastructure because “sanitary condition is very poor in the country.”
However, the ministry of fisheries said that the country was actually banned from exporting fish to the European markets “because its fishing methods did not meet those marketing standards.”
Its information officer, Max Konneh, maintained that a team from the European Union had visited the country in 2010 to assess its fishing conditions and placed “a ban” on the country just after the rebel war.
He said the EU had recommended that Sierra Leone must ensure it had “safe and healthy fishing facilities, fishing labs and to improve its fishing infrastructure” so as to be able to export its fisheries and marine foods to European markets again.
“We are trying to meet those standards but we continue to export our fishes to South Korea and other countries,” he said, adding that government had consulted Précon, a Dutch food safety firm, to help the country improve on its food conditions.
Konneh said they would start by enacting food laws, “because currently there are no food laws in the country”. He said government, together with the EU, had also established “Competent Authority” at the ministry of health and sanitation to meet their targets.
“We are training and sensitising people on fish management and we are planning to collaborate with the ministry of health and local councils to provide toilet and water facilities in our fishing environments,” he said, adding that government had provided jetties at the Shenge, Goderich and Tombo wharves. He said that for purposes of effectiveness they were trying to establish a public-private partnership with other sectors specialised in fishing.
© Politico 16/12/14
