Pres. announces fishermen’s dues are paid, backlog cleared

President Dr. Mohamed Muizzu has asserted that all fishermen have been paid their dues, and that the government has cleared the massive backlog of funds owed to the fisher community.

This was announced by the president via a post on social media platform ‘X’.

As such, he stated that with Sunday’s payment, the fishermen have been paid and the backlog of funds owed to fishermen has been cleared, by paying for their catches up until Friday.

However, the administration has yet to specify a specific figure for the amount paid.

Speaking to residents of Dhuvaafaru island of Baa atoll as part of his recent brief tour of islands in Baa and Raa atolls, the president had revealed that once the backlog of payments was cleared, the administration would ensure that the upcoming payments are not delayed, and arrangements are made to pay them within 48 hours.

Speaking to some media outlets, Fisheries Minister Ahmed Shiyam revealed that the finance ministry has released all the funds to MIFCO.

He added that MIFCO was in the process of depositing funds to the fishermen.

However, since the first day of the fasting month of Ramadan was a public holiday, the minister stressed that if one has an account with a bank other than the Bank of Maldives (BML), they might experience a delay in receiving the money.

Shiyam added that the former administration has left MVR 250 million in debt to fishermen and since it was a massive amount, the state faced hurdles in making the payments all at once.

However, the former administration’s finance minister, Ibrahim Ameer has refuted these claims. Ameer gave details of the amount that MIFCO owed to fishermen by the end of the former administration and stated that after the supplementary budget was approved, arrangements were made by the then-administration to begin issuing funds owed to fishermen.

He added that MIFCO had allocated MVR 100 million for the new administration to continue paying the fishermen and claimed that the funds were regularly issued every week, during the former administration of Ibrahim Mohamed Solih.

Ameer had also publicized details of the dues for fishermen between 16 October 2023 to 15 November 2023, according to which 1,460 fishing vessels remained unpaid a total of MVR 184,254,116.

The incumbent administration has issued all the fishermen’s dues after the fishing community took to the streets to voice their frustration, after not being paid for two months.

Several fishermen took part in the riots, during which they voiced concern over the deterioration of their living conditions. As such, they stressed that there was no way to depart for fishing either.