Minister awaits advice
on Saba lobster project
WILLEMSTAD--Health Minister Sandra Smit has been waiting for an advice from the Commodity Committee before she can publish a ministerial decree that will make the Saba lobster project possible.
In a press release issued recently the Minister said she had informed Marc Schepers, director of Pan Argus, the company that wants to establish a lobster nursery in Saba and exporting these animals to Europe, of the state of affairs.
FOL Member of Parliament Maurice Adriaens posed questions to the Minister recently, asking when the Central Government would take the necessary decisions for the Pan Argus lobster project to start. Adriaens said in a letter to Smit that he understood the Minister only had to approve several Ministerial decrees to enact the law on drinking water, for the company to start its operations.
Smith stated that the Commodity Committee and the Social Economic Council SER had to give advice and that both advices would be forwarded to the Advisory Council for comments. Only when this trajectory has been completed, the Minister said, can she publish the Ministerial decree.
“I have only received SER’s advice. I’m still waiting on the Commodity Committee,” she said. She informed Pan Argus that she would do anything in her power to finalise the trajectory as soon as possible.
Pan Argus started its project early 2004. A full-scale holding point for the treatment and export of lobsters was completed a few months later. Total investments amount to more than one million guilders.
The application for a permit to export the lobsters to countries within the EU went at a very slow pace because there is currently no arrangement between the EU and the Netherlands Antilles to make the export of fish products possible.
One of the conditions is that the project follow EU regulations for the use of drinking water in industrial sites. Schepers explained that although the lobsters are kept in salt water, public health concerns require assurances that the water used to clean the plant, equipment, materials, and the workers’ hands meets European standards.
Schepers said the federal ordinances for the implementation and the execution of norms mentioned in the drinking water law should come into force before the EU would approve a permit for Pan Argus.
Adriaens believes that Pan Argus can create many job opportunities, not only in Saba, but also in Curaçao. In Pan Argus’ opinion the Saba Bank has a lot of potential to produce seafood in a sustainable manner and to ship this product to regions with a high demand, such as Western Europe.
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