‘Sea robbery impediment to local fish production’

What is the Federal Government’s directive on importation of fish?First, let me state that importation of fish is not banned, what is being done is restricting the volume of fish being brought into the country and the species being imported to the country, that is what the minister is doing. In the minister’s opinion, he […]

What is the Federal Government’s directive on importation of fish?
First, let me state that importation of fish is not banned, what is being done is restricting the volume of fish being brought into the country and the species being imported to the country, that is what the minister is doing. In the minister’s opinion, he believes that there are so many fishing businesses going on in the country and we are not opposed to that. For me as a Nigerian, I won’t support dumping of fishes in the country. What we should be importing should be those things we can consume, those things that are required at the moment and not the fish that we will import and stock or hoard for the rainy day because that takes a lot of foreign exchange out of the country. So, what the minister is doing is fine for our association.
Don’t you think the restriction on fish importation will create shortfall?
The restriction on importation will definitely create vacuum or shortfall in fish demand in Nigeria because fish demand is quite high. They said the total demand for fish in Nigeria is about 2.7 million metric tons yearly from the minister’s report and what we are producing as trawler owners is just 30,000 metric tons per annum. The total quantity of local fish production according to the ministry is about 800 metric tons. So the deficit from this report in fish production is 1.9 million metric tons and it will be met by import, which is the report from the ministry. Then, there is this fish importers association that is saying the demand is more that this figure and if you remove this from what they are importing there will still be a short fall of about 1.25 million metric tons of fish which the local production cannot meet and that is their argument. In our point of view, we recognised the fact that there will be a shortfall; we also recognised the fact that what we produce as trawler owners cannot meet the nation’s demand. What the association thought about is a gradual process of reducing importation and increasing local production. Local production could be in form of boosting capacities in cat fish production which is the popular fish production everybody is doing in Nigeria and the quantity of tilapia being produced locally is not documented anywhere. But we know that some people are into tilapia production in Nigeria.
Then we are saying as you reduce import, encourage local production because if we can get some finances from government to bring in more trawlers we will produce more than what we are producing now which will also beef up what the local production is currently contributing to fish demand in the country.
Before, we had about 250 trawlers fishing in Nigerian waters between 2000 and 2008 but now we only have 125 trawlers from the fisheries record and the fishing areas have been reduced because of piracy attacks so we don’t have the whole of the coast to fish. Nigeria is restricted from particular areas of the coastline by pirates, so the local production is also dropping because of the reduction in fishing areas. Therefore, there should be a gradual process of reducing fish import because from the way it is going, prices of fish in the markets will go up.
As we speak today, I know a carton of fish that used to sell for N8, 000.00 now sells for N13.000 because of the sudden reduction in the quantity that has been coming in. The other aspect of it that I as a person will want to talk about is the choice of fish we import; the importers have been restricted to pelagic or non-pelagic fish before now. There are approved types of fishes the importers bring into the country now. You can only bring in pussle mackerel, mackerel, herring, blue whitens (Kote, Panla, Titus, Sawa) those are the common ones. But there are some groups of people who don’t eat those kinds of fishes, the middle and high class people don’t eat iced fishes they eat Crocker, white or yellow Crocker,  barracudas and all that and all those fishes are not allowed to come in again.
If the sea robbery is curbed, at what rate do you think NITOA members can meet up with local fish demand?
I have made three statements which are: don’t ban completely, reduce gradually and put in place a process to increase local production. In fairness to the minister, what he is doing is actually encouraging investments in cat fish production which is all over the place. In trawling, we also need encouragement because to increase our production, we must fight sea robbery. With sea robbery still in existence and at the rate at which they are operating, there is no way production will increase. Therefore, that must be tackled; we have met with all the security agencies on this and they have promised that they will do something about it but we thank God last week I saw in the television Nigerian Navy received some vessels they said they want to use for curbing piracy and sea robbery and to carry out sea surveillance. We believe that will help even though as we speak today the sea is very rough. So, if that one is addressed, our fish production can be doubled. The reason is that we have a large area for fishing and that will encourage our members to bring in new vessels and if the number of vessels increases, definitely production level will increase too. In 2009, when we called off our vessels from the 40 to 45 days they usually stay fishing on the sea, when we call them off and we were off shore for three weeks, by the time the vessels went back, in 35 days they start coming back loaded. That shows that the period that the vessels were not fishing in those areas, there was massive reproduction going on. So, when trawlers start accessing the restricted areas, definitely production will increase.
What are the species of fishes being harvested by NITOA members?
NITOA members harvest Crocker, cat fish, soul fish (Abo), barracudas, shining nails and those are the high end fishes patronised by the high class people in Nigeria. They are also iced because the trawler is a small factory like a cool room. When the fish are harvested, they process immediately on the sea inside the trawler before they are brought to the terminal but they are not as frozen as the imported fish because the imported fishes would be stored for like 6, 7 or 8 months before bringing them and those are the common fishes in the markets.