By: John Kariuki
The National Assembly’s Departmental Committee on Blue Economy and Irrigation today met with officials from the Kenya Maritime Affairs led by Principal Secretary Ms. Betty Njagi.
The team informed the committee on the initiatives Bandari Maritime Academy has taken to provide skills, jobs and knowledge in the fishing industry.
The Hon. Bowen led committee proposed the reduction of fees to the academy to enable serving more Kenyans and uplift the fishing industry. The Director General, Mr. Omingo expressed the passion for the industry and assured the committee that capacity building is key on their agenda.
“We are focusing on skills where people can learn how to fish. Our people need these skills and we have developed a curriculum to train people to fish in the deeper waters,” said Mr Omingo.
PS, Ms. Betty Njagi asked the committee to raise their budget ceiling which will acode them the ability to execute their mandate without constraints and also expand the Fisheries sector.
“We have a shortfall of funds that we need, to execute our mandate. We have various challenges including stock taking of fish, recruitment of staff, infrastructure, as well as managing and sustaining fish. It is hard to involve investors when we aren’t able to account for the fish data that we have,” said PS, Njagi.
The Blue Economy and Irrigation committee asked the state department to merge some of the overlapping institutions for better management and accountability.
In the submission the state department for Fisheries expressed the need to accelerate the implementation of the Coastal and Lake Victoria fish landing sites.
The Chairperson Hon. Bowen urged the Blue Economy and Fisheries state department to open up the fisheries market as it can greatly contribute to the country’s GDP, taking into account Blue Economy contributes 60% of Namibia’s GDP.
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