Fisheries hits K2.4bil over 8 years

The National Main Stories

The National Fisheries Authority (NFA) has generated revenue of K2.4 billion since 2010, with K1 billion paid as dividend to the State, managing director John Kasu says.
Kasu revealed this when presenting his five-year progress report at the leaders’ summit in Port Moresby yesterday.
He said the NFA public investment programme (PIP) from 2010 to 2018 was K284 million and the actual PIP for 2018 was K48 million.
Kasu said NFA’s total dividend payment to the State since 2010 was K1.071 billion and in 2018 alone, the NFA paid K423.382 million.
The years 2017 and 2018 saw NFA paying a huge dividend of over K400 million but that was expected to be lower for reasons not specified.
Kasu said of the total revenue, funds were distributed into three sectors: dividends paid to the State, operating profits and public investment programme (in which NFA’s annual activities exceeded K1.2 billion).
He said the NFA continued to invest in key sector development projects in partnership with development partners and district development authorities throughout the country.
These include town fish market projects, fisheries centres, research facilities, maritime boundary delimitation projects, the Pacific Marine Industrial Zone, in Madang, and the Voco Point redevelopment in Lae, among others.
Kasu said Alotau Market was a co-funded projects between Japan International Cooperation Agency (Jica) and NFA under the fish markets and jetties programme at a total cost of K48 million.
He said other projects like the Wagang Fisheries Port development, a dedicated fisheries wharf project in Lae to provide adequate infrastructural support to processing plants based at the Malahang industrial area, would cost K800 million over eight years.
Kasu said Voco Point fisheries small-to-medium enterprises service centre for local fishermen would K24 million and was in its design stage.
He said the PNG maritime boundary delimitation project would cost K20 million.
Other NFA projects are:

  • Autonomous Bougainville Government (ABG) projects, K15 milion;
  • Delimitation of ABG internal waters ,K3 million;
  • Institutional strengthening, K1 million; and
  • Napanapa pearl farm, K23 million with geo-tech study completed at a cost of K2.5 million.