Fishing inspectors complain of delays in paying travel expenses by Conapesca

The delay in paying Mexican fishing officers puts an upside down on the inspection and surveillance tasks that these federal inspectors carry out in the country's fisheries.

This is a delay of up to six months in some cases of field expenses, known within the National Aquaculture and Fisheries Commission (Conapesca) to represent support provided to these fishery inspectors who go out on their land and water tours.

Administrative support consists of 250 pesos for up to 20 days per month. A sum of 5,000 pesos with which inspectors expect in their budgets. However, due to inflation, this payment has been losing strength.

“With 250 pesos, right now, if anything, you'll make a meal,” says an officer, who has asked to remain anonymous.

“We were used to having the money arrive two or three months later. But I tell you that it's been 6 months now because they owe us,” says another inspector, who also asked to keep his name to this publication.

On Wednesday, Jaime de Jesús Caballero Trinidad, in charge of dispatching the Department of Inspection and Surveillance of Conapesca, together with authorities from the administrative area, summoned officers to attribute these payment delays to the Treasury.

In addition to budgetary delays, cuts in gasoline supplies also make it urgent to deploy fisheries inspection and surveillance in a country with 11,000 kilometers of coastline.

Of the 800 liters per vehicle granted in 2018, the figure has been gradually decreasing year by year, the interviewees say. Currently, officers started working this year with quotas of 150 pesos for gasoline.

According to the data available on the Conapesca transparency portal, in that year, land routes amounted to 18,645 and aquatic routes to 8,942. By 2024, both numbers of trips fell by 15% and 66%, respectively.

“The lack of fuel affects a lot because we can't cover the ground, talking about water and land. From this we cannot cover the distances or the fields, let's say, to which we have to go, so it is very limited. Stop we're practically stopping working. Certain areas are already neglected or neglected. That we didn't visit because well there's no fuel,” said the officer.

For this article, Causa Natura Media requested an interview on this subject from the Social Communication area of Conapesca without a response being given.

The officers said they were waiting for the normalization of the situation.