MIFCO aims to arrange payment for fishermen this week

The Maldives Industrial Fisheries Company (MIFCO) has stated that it is working to arrange the payment for the fish weighed by vessels within this ongoing week.

In a message sent to the media today, MIFCO stated that the company is working tirelessly to secure the "pending" money owed to fishermen as soon as possible and deposit it this week. However, it did not specify what efforts are currently being made to obtain the funds.

"The aim is to arrange a way to deposit the money to vessel owners within this week," MIFCO stated.

MIFCO generally counts two weeks as a "backlog". Based on this, the current backlog stands at 9.1 million Rufiyaa for 882.32 metric tonnes of fish weighed by vessels at MIFCO's facilities and boats from September 28 to October 14. MIFCO said it is too early to say with certainty whether the government will arrange the money in the "backlog" or the entire three weeks of "pending" money. Furthermore, MIFCO noted that when the government usually clears payments, it clears the total outstanding amount at that time.

Although MIFCO stated it is working to arrange a way to pay the money this week, there is no certainty in this. The reason is that the company has no means to pay the vessels. Additionally, despite working with the government for a week to pay the vessels, the government has not yet been able to arrange the 9.1 million Rufiyaa.

Regarding the "backlog" issue, MIFCO stated on the 15th of this month that the company's hope is to clear the money owed to fishermen as soon as possible, and that work related to this is ongoing.

"As before, we are doing a lot of work with the government to secure the funds. The hope is to clear the payment as soon as possible. We will share more information as we receive it," MIFCO stated on October 15.

Looking at how things are going, MIFCO's current role is to share the government's message with the fishermen. The fishermen have to wait until MIFCO shares the message given by the government. Days are passing by in hope.