NFA pays K20mil in dividends

By GYNNIE KERO
THE National Fisheries Authority (NFA) made a K20 million dividend payment to the Government yesterday.
Speaking at the presentation in Port Moresby, Fisheries Minister Patrick Basa said this was the first payment out of the K400 million earmarked for the year.
NFA’s managing director, John Kasu, said last year the authority paid more than K400 million.
Deputy Prime Minister and Treasurer Charles Abel thanked the fisheries authority saying: “We are grateful to the National Fisheries Authority for coming in
with K20 million, part of our budgetary revenue and we look forward to more dividends from NFA.”
Abel said the Government was keen on seeing the country’s tuna being processed domestically.
“We are trying to develop PMIZ (Pacific Marine Industrial Zone) in Madang.
“We want quality jobs too, no low-level jobs (for local Papua New Guineans).
“The first thing is to bring the industry onshore,” he said.
Basa had earlier said: “I recognise the contributions of the fisheries sector not only in terms of dividend payments to the Government but also in providence of employment and spin-off business opportunities.
“These are generated through harvesting of beche-de-mer or trochus shells, or by way of fishing for prawns, reef fish, tuna and other tuna-like species, or by working in tuna canneries or in supplying materials and services to fishing and fish processing sectors or as an National Fisheries Authority or provincial fisheries officer or a fisheries observer on a fishing vessel far out at sea.”