The government is likely to appoint eight directors to Fishermen Co-operative Society (FCS) with its chairman within a week, as the elected fishermen are considering a future plan to cope with a number of challenges. After some eight-year of administrative rule at the FCS, the newly elected body of fishermen see their three year tenure, which is likely to begin in a week, too hard to solve the long-standing issues of their community.
The government according to the FCS bylaws will have to appoint eight directors with a chairman to complete the number of directors to 15 with seven elected members from the fishermen community, a newly elected director, Asif Bhatti told Business Recorder. The FCS board of directors consists of 15 directors of which eight members with a chairman the government appoints while seven members have to be elected through elections from fishermen.
According to him, there are a number of issues on which the FCS and Karachi Fish Harbour Authority (KFHA) have dispute over and continue to grow for the last eight years, saying the society’s new directors are keen to play a key role in problems resolutions at all levels.
“The other important issue, which is ahead of the FCS, is to improve the income and stop the financial leakages in commissions, besides the directors will also consider increasing revenues from Ibrahim Haideri fisheries,” he said. He said the FCS officials, who did not attend offices would have to be brought back to their duties, doing fresh membership of the society and scrutinising the existing ones.
Bhatti said the fishermen of Sindh were facing problems at the Balochistan seawaters for the last several years which also needed early solution, adding the FCS had representation of fishermen of both provinces. The issue of banned fishing nets was serious, he said, adding the FCS would make all efforts to disband the use of such meshes to protect the marine life and increase the landing of useable seafood.
The director said there were issues of boats parking at the harbour channel, congestion and other daily problems of fishermen which the FCS new body would try to solve soon. He vowed to take a strict action against the violators of rules at sea and harbour, and said the elected directors would nominate a senior fisherman Saleem Deedag Baloch as FCS Vice Chairman for his 35-year of services to the community.
