Crack-down on fraud soon

Press, 18 March 1988, Page 5

Crack-down on fraud soon

The Ministry of Agriculture and Fisheries will crack down on commercial fraud by fishing industry companies by drawing on the exper ise of the police and other Government departments. Mr Malcolm Craig, the Assistant Director-General of MAFFish, told the Fishing Industry Association conference in Nelson yesterday that more highly sophisticated method's were needed to fight "white collar crime." To ensure compliance, the department needeh to be able to detect abuses of the system, which amounted to commercial fraud through "creative accounting and reporting techniques.” "We are looking at the possibility of using the resources of Government departments with more expertise in this field than we have," he said. He named the Pc lice, Inland Revenue department and Customs as examples. "We need to improve our monitoring and surveillance capabilities. It is a p*y we have to devote so hwch of our scarce

resources to enforcement, but if we do not, fisheries management as a whole could be seriously undermined.” The vital interests] of those in the industry who were prepared to "play the game" could also be adversely affected, Mr Craig said. The integrity of the I.T.Q. scheme depended on observance of the rules by the great majority of participants.

Mr Craig said regulations introduced last, season covering retrospectively j fish caught in excess of (quota had allowed companies to legitimise such catches' by subsequent purchase or lease of quotas. However, there had ben some abuse of the scheme and major problems in administering it which had impacted on the I.T.Q. scheme itself.

The Minister of Fisheries, Mr Moyle, told the conference later that electronic monitoring, ( audit and fraud' investigation and Crown prosecutions would be added to traditional modes of fisheries surveillance over the next two years, j