A House committee has been tasked with investigating the cause of the proliferation of Blackchin tilapia in Thailand’s natural watercourses, and its impacts on the ecological system, focusing on the import of the 2,000 of the non-indigenous species from Ghana by Charoen Pokphand Foods Public Company (CPF) for research purposes in 2010.
The committee, at its meeting today, demanded answers to numerous questions and materials from the Fisheries Department, including where samples of dead fish were kept, CPF’s complete research report, the log book detailing the department’s acceptance of delivery of dead fish samples from CPF, the information on the DNA of the fish, reports and photographs from CPF’s research farm in Samut Sakhon and preserved fish fins sent by CPF to the department.
Move Forward party-list MP Wayo Asavaroongruang, chairman of the House committee’s subcommittee, said today that one of the conditions for the import of Blackchin tilapia was that CPF would hand over three fish fin samples to the Fisheries Department for safe keeping.
Both CPF and the department are, however, in conflict over the whereabouts of the fins, with CPF insisting that it has already sent the samples to the department and the department denying that ity ever received them.
CPF also claims that it sent samples of 50 preserved dead fish, in two glass jars, to the Fisheries Department in 2011, but the department denies that it ever received these two jars from CPF either.
