Fishermen and Boat Owners Association - Keith Andre re-elected chairman |23 April 2018

The Fishermen and Boat Owners Association (FBOA) recently held its annual general meeting and re-elected Keith Andre as its chairman.

Other members are Jean-Claude Hoareau (vice-chairman), Beatty Hoareau (treasurer), Paul Morin representing Long Line Committee as the new secretary, Louis Bossy representative for Praslin, Teddy Songwar representative for traps and artisanal and Jack Azemia for nets and outboards.

The AGM’s agenda included reports from the chairman and the treasurer and the election of the new executive committee.

An FBOA communiqué states that the new committee has drawn up its road map for 2018 - 2019  and its new strategy to include more fishermen associations to partner with the FBOA as is provided for under its Constitution.

The FBOA invites representatives of different associations to come together when addressing national issues so as to speak with one voice and share the same objectives.

“Projects for the year ahead are the development of a simple mobile application to help fishermen collect data information and have a record of their daily activities, finance and other transactions that can be poised as proof of employment in the form of a payslip thus facilitating access to finance in the form of loans. This would also help to validate and complement assessments carried out by the authority,” the communiqué says.

Plans also include the setting up of a selling platform to facilitate access to markets both local and international as this would also shorten the gap between fishermen and consumers.

This year the FBOA will be participating at the IOTC meeting in Bangkok to show economic data of the industrial tuna fisheries in the South West Indian Ocean and its economic potential for the coastal states in collaboration with FPAOI (Fédération Pêcheurs Artisans de la COI).