Parliament committee decides on policies to disburse subsidies for fishermen and farmers

Parliament Public Accounts Committee has decided on policies to disburse the subsidies of MVR 100 million for fishermen and MVR 50 million for farmers allocated in this year’s state budget.

The 24th meeting of the Public Accounts Committee decided to allocated MVR 1 million from the fishermen’s subsidy for administrative purposes and disburse MVR 60 million to the fishermen to subsidize the fuel cost on each trip, according to the horsepower of the engines installed in their vessels, similar to the principles followed last year. They also allocated MVR 15 million for skipjack and yellow fin tuna fisheries and installment of new bait buoys. The committee allocated a further MVR 1 million to establish a satellite fish detection system and MVR 23 million to establish ice and storage facilities in different parts of the country.

The committee decided that the MVR 23 million for establishment of ice and storage facilities would be disbursed after the Fisheries Ministry submits a concept paper to the committee, assembled through a financial institution.

Regarding the farmer’s subsidies, the committee decided to set aside MVR 500,000 for administrative purposes and disburse the remaining MVR 49.5 million.

The Parliament Public Accounts Committee declared that the money shall be spent in total before the end of 31st of December this year.