The Standing Committee of National Assembly on Food, Agriculture, Livestocks and Fisheries will dispatch its action plan to European Union (EU) for lifting a seven months long ban on its seafood exports by this month, well-placed sources told Business Recorder on Thursday.
This decision was taken in a meeting held on August 22 to review the ban impact on country's seafood sector, price decline in seafood items and fishermen's plight, they added.
During meeting, Minfal was heavily criticised by the committee members besides other MNAs were invited for their expert views on this badly managed issue, which resulted in a ban. Sources said that Marine Fisheries Department (MFD) was primarily responsible for sending the action plan to EU in response to its questions arose by its inspection team about fishery sector deficiencies, which it had never done.
About Minfal's role, they said that it had failed to give justified reasons for this ban and its continuation since February this year. They further said that unfortunately, Minfal had never taken a single positive step for resolution of this issue due to which exports to EU could not be resumed.
"It only arranged a training programme for fishermen by United Nations Industries Development Organisation (UNIDO) and spent Rs 20 million on fisheries development and regulating fisheries affairs," they pointed out.
However, MNA and committee members were not satisfied with the answers of the high officials of Minfal on this issue, they said and added that EU's ban could be avoided by sending it an immediate action plan.
Sources said that though MNA Akhlaq Hussain Abedi was not the part of this committee, was invited to give his expert opinion with a view to end the seafood exports deadlock, who suggested that action plan should be prepared sincerely and dispatched at the earliest to EU. Abedi along with MNA Dr Abdul Qadir Khanzada urged upon the committee to take concrete steps for resumption of seafood exports to EU forthwith, they added.
"About 900 operational boats were almost fit for seafood catch in line with the specifications of EU, which means that action plan could have been sent immediately to EU to avoid ban," they added.
Later, in the meeting was decided that Akhlaq Hussain Abedi would assist the committee for evolving the action plan, which will be sent to EU by this month as a bid to end EU ban. The meeting chaired by Ahmed Anwar Alam, which was attended by Iqbal Turk, Dr Rubena, Dr Abdul Qadir Khanzada, DG MFD, Captain (Retd.) Ishrat, Director Quality Control, Shaukat Hussain, Commissioner Fisheries Development Commission, Hayat Khan and Akhlaq Hussain Abedi.