An internationally backed committee has strongly criticized a deal in which a company partly owned by Saladin Security Ltd. was granted the rights to manage Somalia’s fishing industry which is the home of the largest coastline in africa and said it should either be scrapped or renegotiated with reduced scale.
Giving a british owned Mauritius based Somalia-Fishguard Ltd. responsibility to sell fisheries licenses and conserve Africa’s largest fisheries resources is “a potential conflict of interest,” the Committee said in a report to international donors. The report has been circulated in the internet by global media organizations and it’s claimed an official who has knowledge of the discussions has leaked the report and was confirmed by a member of the committee. Both have refused to identify themselves because the document isn’t public yet.
Somalia’s coastline is richest on the planet in fish species including yellowfin tuna, Spanish mackerel and lobsters that offer the country a chance to fast track rebuilding it’s economy. Development of the industry is being halted by illegal foreign fishing worth an estimated $905 million a year, according to reports by various organizations. Piracy that caused the entire armies of international superpowers and economic heavyweights to gather off the coast of somalia mainly the somali basin and the gulf of aden to protect shipping lines off the coast of the horn of africa nation over the past decade may return unless the illicit trade is stopped, local somali fishermen told Maal Magazine.
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