SODELPA Leader Viliame Gavoka is calling on government to use the relationship it has with our neighbouring countries to secure tuna and keep processing plants in Fiji fully functioning however, the Minister for Fisheries Semi Koroilavesau says Pacific countries have their own byproducts and factories and have limited resources to feed the factories that they have.
Gavoka highlighted this while contrition to the motion for debate of the ‘Consolidated Report on the Review of Ministry of Industry, Trade and Tourism 2016/17 and 2017/18 Annual Reports’
He says it is a sad indication of the way FijiFirst handles relationships with our neighbours.
Gavoka says tuna is in plentiful supply in the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea waters.
Gavoka adds Fiji’s water is not ideal for tuna and the processing plants are not operating at full capacity.
He says we have the capacity to process 75,000 metric tonnes a year and we have about 7 processing plants in Suva.
Gavoka says the resource sector should be growing at a rate that could give the surplus to grow the economy, help pay our debts and bring it down to a comfortable level which is about 40% of the GDP.
Meanwhile, Semi Koroilavesau says since 2017, one of their major push was to secure the tuna raw products to fill the newly built freezer container at PAFCO in Levuka.
Koroilavesau says they tried to secure tuna from Papua New Guinea, the Solomons, Vanuatu, Kiribati and Tuvalu but these countries have their own by-products.
He says all their attempts have been in vain.
Koroilavesau says the fishing vessels have also found it much cheaper for them to return to their mother country, unload their catch, go on the slipway, change crew, re-provision and come back into the Pacific to fish.
He says this is nothing similar to what Gavoka is saying and Gavoka should not bring unconfirmed statements into parliament which are not factual.
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