Fisheries society opens building for members

THE Morobe Fisheries Cooperative Society now has a new building inside the Lae main market.
It will serve as a processing facility for its members.
Society manager Buckley Kaupa told that to fishermen and locals at Buli, Busamang village in Salamaua.
Kaupa said the new facility, which was acquired under an arrangement with the Lae city council, would serve primarily as a filleting centre for members before packaging in bulk and sale.
The Lae city council runs the market.
Kaupa encouraged coastal fishing communities along the Huon peninsula, Bukawa and Finshhafen coastline to form cooperatives and join the Morobe Fisheries Cooperative Society.
He said this was recognised by the Morobe Fisheries Association and the provincial government’s fisheries division.
“The government has shifted away from direct deals and funding with private groups to cooperative societies,” Kaupa said.
He said another benefit of the society, which has 15 primary cooperatives that include inland fish farming, was that it would find and make markets available for members and help them get loans instead of them going to commercial banks.
He said that was to improve on falling fishing activities around Morobe as a result of rising costs to individual fishermen and groups.