Big debt owed by fishing operators
PA Wellington Fishing operators owe the Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries $lO million, most of it for resource rentals, and the Ministry is worried because much of the debt has been outstanding for some time.
The management support director for the Ministry’s fisheries arm, Mr Paul Williams, said about $2.75 million had been outstanding for more than three months and the Ministry was taking steps
to try to recover the money. He said it had not considered hiring a debt collection agency, but had instructed regional managers to initiate meetings with fishing operators to discuss debt problems.
Mr Williams said there could be a link between the outstanding debts and the Fishing Industry Association’s advice late last year that members should not pay the increase in resource rentals until a legal challenge to
the rent increase had been heard. Association members could be interpreting the instruction to mean they should not pay any resource rentals, he said. But he said other reasons could be cashflow problems for the industry after the sharemarket crash, and tax payments due in February and March. The executive officer of the Fishing Industry Association, Mr Doug Gordon, said he had recently
written to all members telling them that even though the legal challenge to the rentals was continuing they were still legally obliged to pay their rentals. The rentals have risen this season by $4 million to $2O million and the industry has argued against the rise, saying price drops and the high exchange rate have left the industry less profitable than it was. Mr Gordon said the slow payment was linked
to the association’s legal challenge but also to the industry’s economic situation.
Mr Williams said the Ministry’s total revenue this year would be about $66 million. Of that resource rentals, foreign licensed nations’ fees and quota sales accounted for about $63 million.
He said foreign countries owe the Ministry $l3 million but they had only recently been billed and no delays in payment were expected.
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Press, 25 February 1988, Page 28
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338Big debt owed by fishing operators Press, 25 February 1988, Page 28
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