REPUBLIKA.CO.ID, MALANG - Minister of Marine Resources and Fisheries, Sharif C Sutardjo, admitted that the governments control over the countrys waters was still weak due to small budget for ship operations.

"Sadly, there is the fact that the budget for supervision operations of the sea continues to decline from year to year. Previously we could still launch operations for 200 days in one year, now we can only conduct marine patrols for 120 days," the minister stated before hundreds of students from fisheries faculties of various universities at the Brawijaya University on Sunday.

He said that there were only about 27 ships for supervising the countrys waters which covered an area of about 5.58 million sq kilometers. What was even saddening is the fact that Indonesia only has seven ships to supervise the countrys economic exclusive zones (EEZ), he said.

The minister added that the use of budget for the marine resources and fisheries was focused on providing training and giving fishery equipment to fishermen. Minister Sutardjo said the supervision burden had now been alleviated a bit after France provided assistance in the form of devices which could detect both legal and illegal vessels sailing in the countrys waters. The device was placed in the tourist resort province of Bali, he added.

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