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

I am not aware of any Environmental Plan done for the SSTC. If there is any I haven’t seen it. Iam sure what the factory is doing to dump its waste is approved by the Environment andConservation Department. No industrial or mining operation is to start unless they have anEnvironmental and Safety Plan in place.Smell pollution from the SSTC is one of the most obvious in Wewak. The smell is awful andonly specialists can tell us that it can be dangerous to our health. The factory is within theindustrial zone of Wewak but for a fish factory it’s too close to town and residential area. Whenthe SSTC factory said would use state of art technology that will have no smell. I never believedit because everywhere such will always produce such smell.The establishment of yet the other Tuna processing factory will have more pollutionimplications, especially the smell. It will be a full canning factory and I would image that itwould be something like the RD Tuna in Madang. With the location of the factory next to theSSTC, both plants will combine to give a more terrible smell than one at the present.It is good to have such investments in the province but it needs to be carefully planed to weighout the pros and cons for it before signing agreements and the actual implementations of it. Itdoesn’t look good when you have a project that is disputed say by the landowners, or otherparties involved. Like in the case for SSTC I see that local participation is very minimal and Ithink that could be the reason for all the anger surrounding the project. I am sure the provincialauthorities will try and avoid such situations for future developments.I don’t think it is feasible to build another factory especially a fish cannery next to the loiningfactory. Given the experience of the smell residents in Wewak are become aggressive andcomplain and if another one is to be built I would expect some resentment from the community.Better to build it outside of the town or residential vicinity.In regard to the fishing vessels and their activity it should be closely monitored by The NationalFishing Authority. They have an Observer Program in place to actually be on fishing vessel andbe present on transferring of fish from catcher vessels to mother boats that takes them overseasmarkets.Regarding working condition of the SSTC factory employee, it is off course a big labor issue.The workers went on a strike few weeks ago. Everyone would agree that the labor rates are verylow paying them K0.60 toea per hour. Some of those employees come from outside the townand had to pay their own bus fares to come to work because the company doesn’t provide themtransport. They end up with nothing at the end of the week because nearly most of the money isgone on bus fares and very little left for their family. Most of the employees are women andmost of them are mothers and how would they feed their family if they spend 8 hours per day 5days a week. The K60 or K80 they get is nothing: it cannot sustain them through to the nextfortnight.In my opinion the SSTC wage rate is breaching the labor laws and everyone would agree thattheir pay is very low and illegal. Some of the employees live as far as Hawain about the 15 kmand pay K2 to come in the morning and K2 to go back home in the afternoon. If they pay K4per day for transport times by 10 working days equals K40 per week for transport that’sbasically their pay that is all spent on transport. Some people come as far Passam and EastCoast about 8 km away. They are happy to work but very poor condition.59