President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu decided on January 28 this year to appoint a representative for fishermen to the board of the Maldives Industrial Fisheries Company Limited (MIFCO).
Under the activities included in the government's Week-14 roadmap, the President decided to appoint a fishermen's representative to the MIFCO board with the advice of the Cabinet, following discussions on a paper submitted by the Ministry of Fisheries and Ocean Resources.
Disclosing the President's decision, an article published on the President's Office website on January 28 stated that to fulfill the Week-14 pledge of expanding the role of fishermen in running MIFCO, the Ministry of Fisheries and Ocean Resources would publicly announce and open the opportunity to include a fishermen's representative on the MIFCO board for the time being. The President decided to appoint a "fisherman" to the MIFCO board from among the eligible applicants who expressed interest.
Even before the President made this decision, the Fisheries Ministry had been working in advance to fulfill this pledge. Accordingly, the Ministry opened the opportunity to apply for this position from December 28 last year until January 11 this year.
Requirements for the person appointed to represent fishermen:
Must be a Maldivian citizen
Must be currently active in fishing
Must be 18 years of age
Must not be serving a sentence longer than one year (12 months) for a proven criminal offense. If convicted of a criminal offense and sentenced to more than 12 months, five years must have passed since the completion of the sentence or since the sentence was pardoned.
Although many days have passed since the deadline for the opportunity opened by the Ministry expired, the Ministry has not disclosed how many fishermen submitted their names or how the process is progressing.
While waiting impatiently for more details on this matter, the Fisheries Ministry held a press conference on March 7. When a journalist asked about this on that day, Minister Shiyam said that the Ministry had shortlisted the applicants from the opportunity opened to fishermen and was working on the appointment. The Minister also stated that a person to represent fishermen on the MIFCO Board of Directors had been determined, and that name would be sent to the Privatization and Corporatization Board (PCB) that day (March 7). The Minister said that day that by appointing a fishermen's representative to the board, MIFCO's day-to-day work would be shared with fishermen, and fishermen would also get a say in running MIFCO.
Since then, neither the Ministry, PCB, MIFCO, nor the President's Office has said anything about this matter. While appointing a fishermen's representative to the MIFCO board was among the things decided to be done within the first 100 days of this government, the first 100 days have also passed. It has been 8 months since the President's Office announced the appointment of someone for this. The government has also completed 10 months. That pledge could not be fulfilled. They did not even dare to say the reason why this is not happening.
What is clear so far is that the Fisheries Ministry has fulfilled its role. The next question that arises is why the President is not appointing someone from among those who expressed interest. Is it because there is no one to his liking among the people chosen by the Fisheries Minister? Or is he waiting to appoint someone politically suitable for it?
MIFCO, which had been operating as a subsidiary company of STO, was changed to a 100% state-owned company on December 20, 2023. The government stated at the time that this was an important step taken to change MIFCO's management system and establish MIFCO as an independent, separate company run more robustly with the full participation of Maldivian fishermen.
