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

The East Sepik Provincial government does have a share in the factory. I don’t know the actualpercentage of it. The plan now is to open a trust account for the province so any dividends fromprojects the Provincial Government has shares will be deposited into the account. With thecurrent uncertainly in the provincial administration starting from the governor and theadministration I don’t know where that issue is at.Prostitution – yes there is possibilities but we don’t know yet. Inside the cannery among theemployees I couldn’t tell from the outside. But for the Asian fishermen and crews it is possible.There are lots of stories about fish exchange out on the boats. It is possible for women to sellthemselves in exchange for cash or other favors and food items. Though I don’t have hard factsto confirm my allegation but I don’t rule this out. Only time and proper investigation like thissure will bring to light the truth in the story.Fishing- the fishing vessels are only after the tuna. The main fish they catch is skipjack tuna,and they also catch yellow fin tuna. They use the net that stretch out 100 to 115 kilometers inthe open sea and whatever is in that range are netted and dumped into their freezers. Other fishapart from tuna are called by-catch which are useless to them so they dump them back into thesea. By-catch can be anything from sharks, dolphins and whatever fish within the range of theirnet. They may also send them overseas but if local companies are contracted to collect them andsell to local consumption here would be better than to dump them into the sea.Ownership of SSTC – What I know is that it is an American company owned by Heinz. Theyalso own the Star Kiss Tuna and another big fishing company. What they do here is contractingthe South Korean to loin fish here and supplies their factories Hawaii, San Francisco and Portde Rigo. That is what I heard from some sources in the provincial government. They also haveconnection with ANGCO through Thomas Nigkins. Why it is called South Seas – Star Kiss andAngco combine to give this name.Benefits of SSTC-• employments for the 1200 employees• Guard Dog Security came to reduce crime problems in Weak by doing foot patrolespecially at night• Other indirect benefit to the markets and other service providers.1. ESPG feasibility studyPaul Bisambi, the Senior Policy Planner for the East Sepik Provincial Administration, producedan analysis of the benefits of the tuna loining factory in January 2000. The analysis is based ona business proposal submitted by South Seas Tuna to The National Fisheries Board in 1999, anda Feasibility Study and Site Selection Report submitted by Integrated Manufacturing PlanningLtd. (of Washington, USA) for SST, in 1999. The analysis covers six points: employment,personal income tax, personal conumption and savings pattern, Derivation Grant, earnings toESPG from equity participation, and VAT rebate to ESPG. The projections are for the periodfrom year one of full production to year 5, which represents phase 1 of the project (phase 2being years 6 to 10).Under the first heading, Employment, the first statement sets the plausibility tone for the entirereport: “When the Tuna Processing Plant is in full operation in year one, it will employ about970 local employees. As per Business Plan an average wage per hour of US$0.90 + 7% fringebenefit will be paid for two shifts.” This converts to roughly K3/hour before benefits.60