Fishy business. The Social Impact of SST.pdf - Act Now!

The main aim of customs is to create revenue for the country, protect against illegal trading,protect local communities, and know how many employee companies have. There are two casesof illegal trading in Wewak. Asians trading store goods in Tarawai Island have been caught andcharged by Customs. Another case, West Irians caught with illegal drinks mostly hard stuff andhave been charged. The clearance must be made with the fishing vessels by Customs. TheFisheries usually look after marine products, but the Customs have last say about all that need tobe exported. The people that come into the country [illegally?] are mostly all Asians. All fish ina fishing vessel must be known by the Customs. Lots of cases of illegal trading have beencaught on the seas using bribery. So Fisheries and Customs must work together to punish suchpeople. All fishing vessels must come into ports for the transshipment from catcher boats tomother boats. On the boats the captains definitely know how man crew menb are on the boat.All crew men are advised that they must have passports or visas to go ashore when a boat entersa port.Wallie Sangi, Acting Senior Advisor for the NFA. The fisheries observers are assigned to goout in boats to monitor the fishing vessels. They will write a report on the vessel or catcher boatof the catches being made. Any illegal act must be reported and will be charged. There will bemore factories coming to Wewak. More fish will be needed. The benefits will go straight to theProvincial Government. The NFA plays a major role in bringing the fish factories to the countryand province. The crew men on the boats must have passports so that they can go on shorewhen a fishing boat reaches a port. Without passports or visa they are illegal.2. Factory workers:Lawrence Wanyia, former Human Resource Manager, SSTC 5/7/05: The South SeaTuna Loining factory opened its operation in April 2004, started off with 10 fulltimeworkers in the beginning and had 1200 employees in April of 2004. It further increased to1300 active workers in Sep 2004. The number will still increase with a lot of demand forpeople to speed up the production and meet its targets. Fish unlike other industrialoperations is does not have computerized technology to remove the grills, chopping the fish,loining, cooking the fish, sizing, weighing, removing skin and the bones. It is however alabour intensive work that require people to physically remove all these things with theirhand. So a lot of the employees especially women are employed in that aspect of theassembly line. Almost a thousand (1000) workers, mainly women are engaged in that areaof work. The proportion would be10 percent men and 90 percent women.134