Malta’s claims of a 210-tonne overcarry of Moroccan tuna disproved in a European Commission report

Raphael Vassallo
A REPORT compiled by European Commission inspectors has revealed that an estimated €4.2 million worth of live bluefin tuna, declared by the Fisheries Division as part of Malta’s carry-over of tuna from 2007, was never physically present in Maltese cages at all.
Conservationist organisations claim that the amount in question – 210 tonnes, valued at €20 a kilo on the international market – is further evidence of an illegal, multi-million euro operation, involving the laundering of illegally caught tuna by other countries through Malta.
These claims are expected to be made public this week at the 2008 meeting of the International Commission for the Conservation of Atlantic Tuna (ICCAT), which gets under way tomorrow in Marrakech, Morocco.
But despite repeated allegations of Malta’s involvement in an international tuna laundering racket, the government has stolidly refused to launch any local investigation into the multi-million euro industry: sticking instead to data supplied by the Ministry of Resources and Rural Affairs, and ignoring the many contradictions and anomalies these often contain.
On his part the European Commissioner for Fisheries Dr Joe Borg has so far desisted from commenting on any allegations of illegalities involving his own home country; including this week’s revelation that 210 tonnes of the endangered fish, claimed by the MRRA to be alive and present in Maltese ranches, have in fact vanished without a trace.

The evidence
Since last July, MaltaToday has published a series of articles about allegations of a 5,000 tonne discrepancy (worth €100 million) between Japan’s declared imports from Malta for 2007/2008, and Malta’s total export capacity over the same period.
The MRRA’s Fisheries Control Division has variously rebutted these allegations through letters to this newspaper, citing numerous instances of “transhipments” from third via Malta to account for the discrepancy.
Among these transhipments, Fisheries Director Dr Anthony Gruppetta last August cited 210 tonnes of bluefin tuna, caught by Moroccan purse-seiner ‘Le Marsouin’, claiming that this fish was still in Maltese cages, after having been “carried over” from 2007.
The same claims also made their way into the government’s official declaration to the Commission, signed by Permanent Representative to the EU Mr Richard Cachia Caruana, in response to a request for information by Commissioner Borg.
But the Malta government’s own import declarations for 2007 do not include any quantity of live tuna imported from Morocco.
Furthermore, after a number of inspections earlier this year, the European Commission last week submitted a report to the international tuna regulator ICCAT, in which there is no trace whatsoever of any live tuna in Maltese cages that had been caught in 2007 by Moroccan vessels, and carried over to this year.
MaltaToday has obtained a copy of this report (ICCAT circular #2157/08, dated 4 November 2008). Tables 6 and 7 of this document, reproduced here, show the amount of bluefin tuna farmed in Malta in 2008; the amount carried over from 2007 to this year; and the flag state of the vessel/s which made the original catch.
According to the Commission’s report, Malta farmed a total of 3198,69 tonnes of tuna in 2008, and carried over a total of 1,136.64 tonnes from 2007. Of the latter over-carry, 260 tonnes came from French vessels, 362 from Italian, 414.64 from Libyan vessels and the rest (100 tonnes) were locally caught.
But the Malta government’s representative, in an official communication with the European Commission dated 1 September, supplied a different picture.
Quoting from Gruppetta’s letter, Cachia Caruana stated: “Le Marsouin is a Moroccan purse-seiner which caught live bluefin tuna for a Maltese fish farm... the total round weights transferred into Maltese cages amounted to 210,000kg. This bluefin tuna is still in cages since it was not harvested in 2007 but was carried over to 2008...”
However, as can be seen from the tables, the same 210 tonnes were clearly not reported to the European Commission, and inspections carried out this year evidently encountered no trace of any such Moroccan-caught tuna currently in Maltese cages.

Carry on over-carrying
Aside from the glaring discrepancy between Malta’s declarations to the Comission and those of the Commission’s own inspectors, doubts have also been cast on Malta’s claims of an over-carry in the first place.
Malta is in fact the only EU member state to make such a claim, and industry sources who spoke to MaltaToday expressed scepticism, arguing that it makes no business sense to keep live tuna in pens for such a long period of time, with all the financial risk this entails.
This newspaper is also reliably informed that during this week’s ICCAT meeting, the government’s declarations to the Commission will be openly challenged by conservation groups such as the World Wildlife Fund, which argue that the 1,136 tonnes cited as carry-over were actually illegally caught by third countries, and laundered through Malta.
These and other issues will be thrashed out at the ICCAT meeting, starting tomorrow, which is expected to stir controversy on account of the Commission’s recent hints of a total moratorium on bluefin tuna fishing.
Although supported by countries such as Spain and Japan, the United States has opposed the moratorium, claiming that it is only the Mediterranean and the Eastern Atlantic fisheries which failed to control their respective industries.
European Fisheries Commissioner Joe Borg will be negotiating terms on behalf of all EU member states, including Malta. Questions sent to the Commission regarding the above-mentioned discrepancy – as well as the official Japanese trade statistics for Q1 and Q2 2008, which have now been made public – remained unanswered at the time of going to print.

rvassallo@mediatoday.com.mt

 

PRINT THIS ARTICLE