Fishermen

Minister of Fisheries and Agriculture Ahmed Shafeeu has said that the Ministry has not been able to release fishermen’s subsidies of MVR99 million included in the budget, due to legal issues.

The Parliament Finance Committee approved MVR99 million as subsidies to fishermen and notified Fisheries Ministry on 18 October to release the money.

Fisheries Ministry announced back then, that the subsidies will be released on 1 November.

Shafeeu told Sun Online today that the under the Finance Act, subsidies can only be provided in accordance with laws that govern the provision of that subsidy. He informed that there are no laws that govern the provision of subsidies to fishermen.

“We requested the AG for advice, because subsidies cannot be provided without a law. The AG said that if it’s identified as a basic right, it can be provided based on the former Supreme Court’s ruling. But it involves legal problems. We are prepared to provide subsidies, we just have to follow the legal procedures,” he said.

The Minister said that since the AG had not explicitly said that the subsidies can be released, the Ministry had appealed to the Finance Committee for further advice.

He said that the subsidies cannot be released until the matter is clarified, but expressed hope that the doubts can be cleared by 15 November.

“Even though the Finance Committee has asked us to provide this money, we can only do so according to the law. So we need to discuss this matter with the Finance Committee. We are doing everything possible to release these funds,” he said.

The subsidies to fishermen were included in the budget for this year. It has, however, not been possible to release the money as the Finance Committee had not established the policies necessary to do so.

MVR100 million was included in the budget to be provided to fishermen, of which MVR1 million has been approved by the Finance Committee as expenses.