Under the government's efforts to compile a comprehensive national registry of Maldivian fishermen, 35% of fishermen operating on fishing vessels in four southern atolls have been registered.
According to the latest updates shared by the Fisheries Ministry teams working on compiling the registry, with the assistance of councils, vessel owners, and captains, fishermen currently active on 35% of the vessels belonging to Fuvahmulah City, Addu City, Gaafu Alifu (GA), and Gaafu Dhaalu (GDh) atolls have been successfully registered.
The Fisheries Ministry stated that through the collaborative efforts of the atoll council, the Fisheries Ministry, and fishermen to register all fishermen in GA atoll, fishermen from 41% of the fishing vessels in the atoll have now been registered.
Special teams are carrying out the work of registering fishermen by dividing the Maldives into 6 zones, under the supervision of Fisheries Minister Ahmed Shiyam. Fishermen are being registered on a module added to the Fisheries Ministry's "Keyolhu" system. The Keyolhu system is a mechanism that collects, stores, and maintains information related to fisheries.
Fishermen can also register themselves on this system. The registration of fishermen is divided into 3 stages.
Stages of Registration:
The first stage is the registration of the vessel owner or operator.
The second stage is appointing the captain who goes fishing on the vessel, once the vessel is registered.
The third stage is generating a special code for the captain through the application, after the captain is registered.
Once the code sent to the captain from the application is shared with the crew, the crew members can use the code to register in the registry. After downloading the Keyolhu application to their phones and logging in using eFaas, crew members will be prompted to enter the code. When the code provided by the captain is entered, the information of the crew members applying to register is retrieved from the Department of National Registration (DNR).
Only the crew members approved by the captain, from among those who apply to become crew members of the vessel using the captain's code, will be registered. To ensure the authenticity of the registry, the information of the vessel's crew will be visible to all crew members.
The government's policy is to make fishermen a group registered with a state institution. The Fisheries Ministry has stated that once the registry work is completed, the official information of all fishing vessels operating in the Maldives, as well as captains and crew members, will be stored and maintained in the ministry's database.
