The Senegalese branch of Transparency International underscored the corruption and lack of transparency in fisheries governance and provided recommendations to improve it
On a Facebook post last Saturday 6 June, the Senegalese Ministry of Fisheries and Maritime Economy announced officially they will not issue the 54 fishing licences to vessels of Chinese and Turkish origin following the strong opposition by the majority of Senegalese fisheries stakeholders. The Ministry has only granted a favourable response to the request for a change of option concerning two vessels already flagged to Senegal, “moving away from the deep-sea pelagic seiner option towards the longliner option, which the committee [CCALP, tn] considers to be more selective.” The members of the Consultative Commission of Fishing Licences (CCALP) were informed by mail of the Ministry decision.
To recall, the government had sent a list of 56 requests for licences by email to the CCALP early April, at the height of restrictions put in place to prevent the spread of COVID-19. This triggered joint action by artisanal and industrial fishing organisations, as well as civil society organisations, to oppose the issuance of such licences.
The Forum Civil, the Senegalese branch of Transparency International, has however, underscored the challenges in the governance of the sector “characterised by fraud, corruption, exacerbated corporatism and de facto monopoly situations organised or maintained by the State.” On Sunday 7 June, the Forum Civil published several recommendations to the government and to the Senegalese industrial fishing organisation (GAIPES) to improve fisheries management.
The recommendations
To the Ministry of Fisheries and Maritime Economy to:
Carry out an audit of the Senegalese flag in the near future by an independent firm, chosen by competitive bidding on the basis of neutral specifications;
Publish the list of licences allocated (between 2018-2019 and 2020, renewed or regularised) in order to know the actual beneficiaries and the categories of fisheries concerned;
Finalise the survey on the fishing authorisations allocated under the management of Mr Omar Gueye and initiated by Mrs Aminata Mbengue NIDAYE;
Take urgent measures against the fraud carried out by vessels of other flags which land in Senegal with unlabelled boxes to "senegalise" the fish;
Review the modalities of payment of health and catch certificates which currently allow organized and paralegal corruption;
Withdraw any new licence that would have been granted without taking into account the technical opinion formulated by the CRODT [the national oceanographic research institute, tn] on the situation of the resource;
Reinforce the autonomy of the CRODT in legal, financial, human and material means, finalise and optimise its institutional anchorage;
Continue the efforts to complete the work of restoring the ITAF DEME [Fishery patrol vessel, tn] boat to a good state of repair;
To the GAIPES to:
Start, without delay, with the Ministry of Fisheries and Maritime Economy, the State body in charge of implementing the sector policy in this field, all discussions useful to improve the governance of the sector for the benefit of the actors concerned;
Participate, alongside other interested actors, in the financing of research according to modalities strictly framed by the law;
Work with the Ministry and other stakeholders to review and improve the legal framework of the maritime economy.
Senegalese fish processors have actively taken steps to fight against the spreading of the virus, most of them with their little savings.