LIKE other entrepreneurs in this country, those involved in the fishing industry are also facing challenging times. During a dialogue with fishermen associations in Perak organised by the Association for Community and Dialogue (ACID) that was also attended by the Human Resources Minister and officials from the Immigration Department, the fishermen pointed out that hiring of foreign workers was one of the main problems they encountered. They said that registering their foreign workers with the Home Ministry instead of the Fisheries Department, which was the previous practice, was taking a longer time as it involved health screenings and more documentation. They said it only took one day to register their foreign workers with the Fisheries Department.
The lag in the time taken to register foreign workers leads to loss of manpower which affects their income because it is based on their harvest of fish. Most locals do not want to work on fishing boats so their harvest would be reduced if they do not hire foreign workers, they said.
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