NFA REVENUE SHOULD BE DISTRIBUTED TO COASTAL PROVINCES: TOMURIESA

THE OPPOSITION Leader Douglas Tomuriesa says legislation should be amended to make sure the National Fisheries Authority’s (NFA) revenues are distributed to coastal provinces.

Mr Tomuriesa said the Government should be fair to the resource owners and their provinces when distributing revenues from this sector.

The Opposition Leader was specifically refering the recent presentation of K402 Million revenue generated by NFA in revenue and was presented to the Treasury.

“The fisheries are derived from the licensing of commercial fishing boats and are form of tax and should not be labelled as a non-taxed revenue in the first place,” he said.

Mr Tomuriesa said it was unfair to the coastal provinces and the coastal resource owners that the Government did not share revenues collected by the NFA.

The Opposition Leader further pointed out that if the Government policy was to equitably share mining and petroleum resources with the resource owners and their provinces, then it must immediately amend the National Fisheries Management Act to enable sharing of fisheries revenues with the coastal resource owners and their provinces.

He said he would move a motion during the next sitting of Parliament to seek support of the House, especially MPs of coastal provinces, including Governors for the National Fisheries Management Act to be amended in order to allow for the sharing of revenues between the Government and the NFA and the coastal provinces, especially local resource owners.

National Fisheries Managing Director, Justin IIakani, said the fisheries industry contribution constituted about 54 per cent of the total non-taxed revenue administration for the Government this year.