ROTTING FISH AT SEA

Rajika Jayatilake notes that the global demand for fish has led to thriving corruption in the fisheries sector

With people consuming an estimated twice as much seafood today as they did 50 years ago, there is a greater focus on fishing globally. Arising from this, the FAO projects a 15 percent increase in global fish consumption by 2030.

According to the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in Washington D.C. however, this uncontrolled demand for fish is creating a major problem for the global economy in terms of illegal, unreported and unregulated (IUU) fishing. It has led to annual losses of US$ 15-36 billion dollars. WWF’s Ocean Policy Manager Ben Freitas says: “Fisheries corruption can have devastating impacts on marine ecosystems and local communities that may depend on them.”

The Living Blue Planet Report 2015 states that fish populations have reduced by 50 percent since 1970 with tuna, mackerel and bonito populations depleting by 74 percent.

And as Canadian author Margaret Atwell notes, “when smaller boats were still in use, fisheries were sustainable – more or less. Now you’ve got bigger and bigger boats chasing smaller and fewer fish.”

Moreover, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) observes that corruption taints every part of fisheries globally. UNODC sees countries with weak governments and little or no accountability as being more vulnerable to corruption in this sector.

This includes officials taking bribes to verify forged fishing licences and port officials allowing businesses to import mislabelled species knowingly to evade higher tax rates. The name or flag state of a fishing boat is easily changed, and fishing vessels are often registered under shell companies in the Marshall Islands or Liberia.

Vessels that flout the law generally turn off location tracking devices or mix their illegal catch with regular catches in other boats to avoid getting caught.

UNODC states: “Corruption enables fisheries crimes to occur at every stage of the value chain and almost without exception, results in significant loss of revenue for the country in question.”

Team Leader of the Green Corruption programme at the Basel Institute on Governance Juhani Grossmann is collaborating on anti-corruption efforts with Indonesia’s Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries. He says: “The lack of accountability, I think, is even greater in the fisheries sector than it is in other environmental-related activities.”

Corruption is pervading the fishing enterprise of many countries.

For instance, corruption in Indonesia’s fisheries sector centres on one of the country’s most precious resources – baby lobsters that are no bigger than the tip of a human finger. Worried that overfishing would deplete the baby lobsters, Indonesia prohibited their exportation in 2016.

Not long after Indonesia’s former minister of maritime affairs and fisheries Edhy Prabowo took office in October 2019 however, he lifted the ban on the export of baby lobsters. And during his short stint as minister, he accepted bribes amounting to nearly two million dollars.

Prabowo was arrested for alleged corruption in November 2020 and sentenced to five years in jail. The illegal export of lobster larvae under his tenure had deprived Indonesia of over 62 million dollars in revenue in 2019 alone while depleting the country’s lobster population.

The fisheries corruption scandal involving Namibia and Iceland entailed a sum of at least 20 million dollars, and was named the ‘Fishrot Files’ in a 2019 WikiLeaks release. In this case, a number of high profile Namibian politicians and businessmen were accused of corruption.

They secured valuable fishing quotas held by the state fishing entity Fishcor and diverted them to the Icelandic fishing enterprise Samherji in return for bribes.

It is alleged that the former fisheries minister Bernhardt Esau, ex-justice minister Sakeus Shanghala and 10 others had benefitted from corruption. Samherji however, one of Iceland’s prominent businesses, denied the bribery allegations.

Meanwhile, overfishing and illegal fishing have led to the near depletion of Ghana’s fish stocks, and jeopardised the health and livelihoods of millions of Ghanaians. Local people blame mostly Chinese large industrial trawlers for practising saiko, which is the illegal transhipment of fish at sea.

Ghana’s military is currently training to crack down on illegal overfishing in the Gulf of Guinea. With China wielding great influence in the region, some Ghanaian naval officers fear a crackdown might cause friction with Beijing.

Fisheries corruption is not confined to developing countries.

In the recent past, a high profile European official was connected to a criminal network involved in illegally harvesting bluefin tuna, which were then brought to Spain from ports in France through Italy and Malta.

However, most instances of corruption in the global fisheries sector go undetected.

Professor of Public Policy at the University of Adelaide Prof. Adam Graycar says: “You have inspectors colluding with fishing boat owners. Nobody’s going to tell you what’s happening or give you any data.”

So fisheries corruption will continue to flourish globally.

As the Chairperson of Transparency International Delia Ferreira Rubio asserts, “people’s indifference is the best breeding ground for corruption to grow.”

Delia Ferreira Rubio
Chairperson
Transparency International