The Maldives Industrial Fisheries Company (MIFCO) has stated that it is difficult to specify a date when fishermen will be paid for their catch.
In a message sent to the media today, MIFCO stated that it is currently difficult to give a date for the payment of fish weighed to MIFCO from September 28 up to yesterday. The reason given is the decline in fishing and the current financial situation of the company.
MIFCO said its hope is to clear the pending payments to fishermen as soon as possible, and that work is underway regarding this.
"As before, we are doing a lot of work with the government to acquire funds. The hope is to clear the payments as soon as possible. We will share more information as it becomes available," MIFCO's message read.
According to the information shared by MIFCO, 882.32 metric tonnes of fish were weighed to MIFCO by vessels over the past two weeks. The value of this fish is 9.1 million rufiyaa.
Due to bad weather over the past two weeks, many vessels did not go fishing. Furthermore, because MIFCO is not making payments and not issuing fuel on credit, some vessels are unable to go fishing as they have no way to fuel up. Due to this reason, the number of vessels weighing fish at MIFCO facilities has also decreased significantly.
