JAKNEWS.COM---The government needs a legal umbrella for determining the `fate` of confiscated foreign fishing vessels in addition to making perpetrators wary of poaching in another country`s waters, a minister said.

"Like in Australia where any seized Indonesian fishing vessel is sunk. This measure is still under process of deliberation in Indonesia as the country needs such a legal umbrella," Marine and Fisheries Minister Freddy Numberi said here on Saturday.

He said the proposal to sink any foreign fishing vessel was possibly adopted on account of the people`s dismay about fish theft which has really caused losses to the state and fishermen themselves.

For that purpose, a revision of the law and regulations on the captured foreign vessels caught redhanded poaching in Indonesian waters could be proposed.

The minister himself preferred to make use of the foreign fishing vessels as educational facilities at many fishery schools in Indonesia in the hope of creating job opportunities

"It could be done after the issuance of court verdicts on the confiscated foreign vessels which can be given to the state to serve as educational facilities," he said.

If the confiscated vessels had to be auctioned, the owners of the vessel could possess those vessels again only by using Indonesian individuals as the buyers.
 

nANT/JAK01