By Sulayman Waan
The permanent secretary at the Ministry of Fishery and Water Resources (MoFWR), Dr. Bamba Banja, has defended the agreed fishing between the government of the Gambia and the European Union, describing financial benefit for the country out of the deal.
“Every year, we are having on the agreement more than what the Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs is allocating for to the whole Ministry of Fishery and Water Resources,” he said the remark at the AGM organised by Gambia Sailors in Banjul.
According to him, the funds coming to sectoral helps support resolving institutions, adding that the Gambia government and his ministry has financial compensation on the agreement.
He described his ministry’s agreement with EU as the best agreement as he recommends Gambians to log into their EU website to see the benefits.
He added: “When you see and compared it with other countries, you will deduce whether ours is a good agreement or not. This is a win- win agreement for us.”
He assured his ministry’s commitment to the National Development Plan (NDP), saying the NDP includes the institutional strengthening, improving legal reforms and improves the management and development of fishery sector.
He revealed that his ministry will attain the sustainable development goals as they already commenced the implementation of NDP.
He said: “My officials are responsible Gambians; we will not do anything that will undermine the development of the country and his ministry in particular.”
He recalled that when the country’s regime change in 2017 MOFWR approached EU to reestablish their fishery’s agreement because it had been dormant for 22 years, adding the country was losing revenue on the sector through the former government.
“The agreement we have signed focused on tuna and hake. Tuna is highly migratory and not every time of the year they [tuna] are present in our water. Even when they are present, they are highly migratory. All our neighbours have been signing this agreement continuously. They were benefiting while we are losing because the tuna are migratory,” he confirmed.
He added: “We are going to support those [sailors] in the rural communities, strengthen fisheries institutions, develop their [sailors]capacities and create more enabling environment for sailors so that the participation of Gambians in the sector can continuously growth.”