Marsaxlokk Artisanal Fishers, an NGO set up to give a voice to beleaguered traditional fishers, notched an important victory last week with the approval of tax-free fuel for its members.

But Martin Caruana, president of the NGO, told The Sunday Times of Malta that the NGO remained a short step from being equal to the two fishing cooperatives.

“The cooperatives get a small commission every time one of their members purchases tax-free fuel,” he explained.

“I have requested that as an NGO we similarly get commissions on the purchase of tax-free fuel by our members.

“The Director-General of Fisheries and Aquaculture told me that striking this agreement would be possible, and that would put us on a level playing field with the cooperatives.”

The provision of tax-free fuel to fishermen is enshrined in an EU directive but the members of the NGO had not received any since February 2017. The saga began when the NGO supplied the Department of Fisheries and Aquaculture with a list of fishermen who had quit the cooperatives and joined the NGO, and the next day the department revoked the allocation of tax-free fuel for those fishermen.

It issued a directive, just a day before the NGO was launched, saying that “duty-free fuel can only be granted to Fishers who form part of Co-operative”.

In the past week the government changed its attitude towards us

This led to nine months of wrangling with the department. The NGO complained to the Ombudsman, which ruled in its favour on May 24, 2017, branding the directive “discriminatory”.  The Ombudsman also argued that the EU directive takes precedence over any agreements and policies issued by the department.

But the Ombudsman’s ruling didn’t produce immediate breakthroughs in the impasse and neither did a judicial protest filed on May 30. The NGO’s cause was eventually championed by Joe Debono Grech, a former PL MP and consultant at the Office of the Prime Minister.

In recent days an informed source within the department blamed strife between the NGO and cooperatives for the impasse, but the issue was finally resolved after several meetings which led to the NGO being recognised on a par with the cooperatives.

“In the past week the government changed its attitude towards us, and I wonder whether the death of Daphne Caruana Galizia contributed to this,” Caruana said. “Now fishermen will have the liberty to choose membership in whichever body represents their interests. As an NGO we talk about issues that the cooperatives do not address.”

The NGO, set up in July of 2016, campaigns for the interests of artisanal fishers who are being muscled out by the aggressive and intense industrial fishing. The NGO only has 20 members, out of 377 full-time fishers in Malta, and Mr Caruana now hopes it will grow in numbers and clout.

“We are not open to all fishers,” he said, adding that the methodology and aggressiveness used by big fishers is very destructive.

He pointed to fishermen with trawlers and lampara fishermen who have increased the number of lamps and enlarged the nets as examples. In the past fishers used to use one lamp but nowadays they use multiple powerful LED lamps and bigger nets to the point that they are even catching juvenile calamari. This has impacted the artisanal fishermen who fish for calamari.

There are now also fishers who deploy more than 50 trammel nets, employing Tunisians mostly as cheap labour, whereas artisanal fishermen deploy 12 nets at most.

“We only accept traditional fishermen as members because we are in favour of sustainable fishing.”

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.