Gov�t Shuns Stranded Zambian Fish Traders
Chakalisa Dube | Monday June 5, 2017 17:36
The fish is destined for Kasumbasela, a cross-border town between the Democratic Republic of Congo and Zambia.
Majority of the traders who are stranded in Maun are of Zambian origin. In March this year government issued a statutory notice banning export of dried fish for a period of 12 months.
The Zambians claim that the ban took effect when they had already bought fish hence want Government to give them a temporary waiver to transport their fish to Kasumbasela. Since the ban, dozens of trucks packed with fish remain idle in Maun. The Zambians through their spokesman, Nyambe Nyambe recently said that they have been stuck in Maun (since the ban was imposed) trying to negotiate with authorities to no avail. They also bemoaned loss of business.
“The truck owners we have hired to help us transport our fish are also losing their patience because they are losing business. They even want us to unpack our fish from their trucks but we cannot do so because it is expensive and we have no money,” he said.
Even local and citizen traders have also jumped to the defence of the Zambian fish traders. In an interview with The Monitor’s sister paper, Mmegi, last month, the Ngami Trust Manager, Galefele Maokeng had this to say: “Foreign buyers and our people have got large fish stockpiles waiting to be exported. These fish stocks were raised with a legitimate expectation to export, under a legal arrangement licensed and guaranteed by the minister and the trust,” he said.
He explained that, “Several fishermen have vacated fishing camps and our fish market in Sehithwa has been shut down”.
Maokeng further noted that if the ban goes for a couple more months, hundreds of fishers will be out of work, adding that this will in turn affect the operations of the Trust as it relies on rentals paid by the fishers. “A third of these fishers are beneficiaries of government poverty eradication scheme,” he revealed.
However, the Minister of Environment, Natural Resources Conservation and Tourism Tshekedi Khama this week maintained that the Government will not heed calls to lift the moratorium.
“They (the Zambian traders) knew before the ban was put in place, but went on to buy dried fish for export. Now they claim that they bought the fish when the ban was yet to be introduced.
“As the Government we surveyed the area and established that there was no dried fish before the ban was introduced. They just bought fish out of ignorance, I suppose,” Khama said yesterday.
Khama went on to defend the fishing ban, which has also irked the local fish traders.
“We realised that majority of foreigners were the ones enjoying the maximum benefits of exporting dried fish. We stopped the trade in order to come up with a comprehensive strategy that would help more Batswana to benefit from the trade.”
He continued, “We also wanted to establish the fish population inside the lake. Establishing the population of fish will help Government to determine the monthly figure of fish than can be sourced from the lake”.
Khama said before the export ban, on a monthly basis, 45,000 fishes were sourced from the lake.
“Had we allowed the trend to go on (without establishing the fish population) we would have run the risk of severely depleting fish population.” “Loss of fish would also have negatively affect tourism because the lake Ngami plays an important role when it comes to attracting tourists to the area.”
The ban was supposed to last for 12 months, but Khama said that it maybe shorter than that. He said that lifting the ban would depend on when the Government will complete the fish census and a review of how Batswana will effectively benefit from the dry fish export trade.