Fishing vessel forced to discard 2 tonnes of unweighed catch

A fishing vessel from M. Naalaafushi has been forced to discard two tonnes of fish it caught yesterday due to being unable to have their catch weighed.

The owner of the boat, Vindhu 1, Ibrahim Hussain said that with no way to weigh the fish, his boat had to discard two tonnes and 600 kilos of catch into the sea.

Ibrahim said that after the day's fishing, the vessel had gone to MIFCO Jazeera boat outside M. Muli at 10am for weighing catch. However, the boat had said that they had stopped weighing fish for the time, and would resume in the evening.

As it takes three days of waiting to obtain ice, the vessel decided to have their catch weighed immediately instead of storing it.

"Even to get ice, we have to wait three days in a queue. There are only two (ice) plants in the atoll. We get ice from only one of those. We did try from the other ice plant as well, but we couldn't get any," Ibrahim said.

As fishing is their primary source of income, the vessel decided to go fishing despite not being able to acquire ice. They caught two tonnes of fish and went to the MIFCO boat for weighing.

"When we went to get the fish weighed, there was only one other vessel ahead of us. We did tell them that there was no ice, that the fish will rot if kept for long. They ignored this and said they will be next weighing fish in the evening," he said.

"With weighing queues, they don't give us a queue number. Those who come late will have to go to the end of the queue, behind other vessels. If you leave the queue at any point, you will have to go right to the back," he said.

So when the Vindhu 1 returned at 4pm, they had to go right to the back of the queue despite having been waiting since morning.

"Our turn came after four other vessels had their catch weighed. One boat had six tonnes of fish, the other four tonnes. When it was our turn, they said they had reached capacity. That they cannot weigh any more. We pleaded with them to weigh our catch. We asked of them why they had weighed the catch of boats that had come later when we had been waiting for so long," Ibrahim said.

Ibrahim said that they had appealed for their fish to be weighed up until 8pm last night, to no avail. At this point, the catch was going bad, and the vessel was left with no choice but to discard it into the sea.

Asked why the catch hadn't been given to fish processors who cook and dry fish, Ibrahim said that no one on their island does such work. Further, as it is a good seasoning for fishing, there wouldn't be other parties willing to buy the catch, he said.

"When we have the fish weighed, it is for a rate of MVR 14. With having to discard it into the sea, we have faced a loss of approximately MVR 38,000," Ibrahim said.

Disheartened at the loss, and with the difficulties in getting their catch weighed, Vindhu 1 did not go out for fishing today.