Peru Libre puts the carriage before the oxen

PERU
Sunday, January 16, 2022, 00:10 (GMT + 9)

In our column of October 23, 2021, under the title “How long adrift?”, we noted that the fishing sector lacked guidelines, priority objectives, national compliance standards, etc. To such an extent that in the inventory of public policies of CEPLAN, none is recorded for fishing and that in the recently promulgated General Government Policy (2021-2026), this activity is not considered in the axes of intervention. The state is largely unaware of it.

Despite not having any of the aforementioned elements, the 'Free Peru' caucus has presented a General Fisheries Law Project in Congress, which they intend to debate during 8 sessions, in so-called "technical tables" that began this 4th of January and end on the 28th of the same month. These deny access to the private sector and a large number of social organizations. They want to run and approve everything by horseback.

The National General Coordinator of FIUPAP, which brings together artisanal fishermen, José Cachique, stated at the first meeting that before engaging in the analysis of this project, the Ministry of Fisheries should be reinstated, as has been demanded at the national level. "A law can hardly be passed without having defined the governamental area that is going to apply it," he said.

For the rest, the project leaves much to be desired in its content. Copy contraindicated concepts; vaguely refers to aquaculture which has an independent law; It includes an unusual requirement of maximum catch sizes and more than promoting, it pursues. It repeats numerous topics already outdated about artisanal fishing, but does not stop at its essential formalization, both in the field of boats, as well as in credit and social security.

On the other hand, it states a relaunch of the ITP, but excludes it in the research chapter and does not separate it from the CITEs; bypasses the processors of the State purchasing plan; opens the doors for industrial extraction in the Amazon; it promotes reserve zones, but not the decontamination of the coastal marine edge; it seeks an absurd classification of fisheries with an intermediate degree between underexploited and fully exploited, and creates another delirious one of “overexploitation”.

There is no mention of what concerns fishing rights, nor is it ordered that the sector's own resources be exclusively destined to meet its investigation and inspection costs. Nor does it prohibit them from being embezzled in administrative expenses or other vice ministries. There is talk of friendly rigs without defining them, records are created without supporting them and the term of validity of the permits is set at 5 years, which is clearly inconvenient due to its brevity.

We could list dozens of nonsense more, however, the worst thing is that this project intends to impose itself without precise objectives, derived from a national policy approved with citizen participation, at whose service a modern sectoral law would later have to be designed and structured. It is a general clamor that there should be a consensus on the great guidelines that indicate the path of our fishing activity, the same one that, due to the lack of this vital tool, loses competitiveness and is falling behind compared to neighbors and producers from other latitudes, who have much less wealth in the sea and inland waters than Peru.

The Peru Libre caucus wants to do things the other way around, which would undoubtedly be detrimental to the country. They should understand, once and for all, that it will never do to put the 'carriage before the oxen'.

Author/Source: Alfonso Miranda Eyzaguirre /expreso.com.pe

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