KUANTAN: Fishing industry players can offer employment to paroled prisoners, including those granted early release through the Licensed Release of Prisoners, as deep-sea vessel crews.
Fisheries Department director-general Datuk Adnan Hussain said his department has entered into an agreement with the Prisons Department to utilise the prisoners in the fishing sector.
He said the effort to hire prisoners as deep-sea fishing crews was to offset the shortage of crew members among the local community which has been occurring for a long time.
"The department's record last year showed there were more than 25,000 fishing vessel crews across the country consisting of foreigners from Thailand, Vietnam and Indonesia. Some 18,000 were hired by several companies in the Peninsular Malaysia
"The deep-sea fisheries sector has been always facing shortages of local crew members and almost every year, this is filled by the foreigners.
"The zone C, C2 and C3 deep-sea fishing vessels require between 15 and 30 crew members and shortages will result in a lot of issues to the skipper and vessel owner," he said when contacted.
Adnan said there were now about 778 deep-sea fishing vessels in the country but only 450 vessels are actively carrying out fishing activities between 100 and 200 nautical miles.
Meanwhile, Adnan urged deep-sea vessel owners who are interested in hiring ex-inmates as crew members to directly contact the Fisheries Department in their respective states who will then liaise with the Prisons Department.
"I hope that the initiative will help reduce dependency on foreign workers as fishing crew members. However, so far the department has not received any requests from vessel owners (to engage services of ex-inmates)," he said.
Deep-sea fishing vessel owner Md Yussery Md Yusoff, 67, lauded the move by the Fisheries Department to rope in the ex-inmates into the fishing industry.
"The inmates will be provided the necessary training and can become skillful crew members. It is impossible to conduct deep-sea fishing activities with insufficient crew members," he said.