Source: "Red Soil"

Word on the streets of Madang is that the RD Tuna Cannery in the province made a 2 Million Kina loss on exported frozen loins last year. Why that is so is unknown, but the impact caused the recruitment of more women very poorly paid as usual, doing a lot of standing, and unnecessary deductions made to their already low pay packages.

A yellow flag was raised on RD Cannery’s canned products as a result, but that did not stop it from exporting, it resolved to exporting ‘without labels’, and complaints from its International clients are piling up.

The manager of production was blasted and blamed for the loss. One thing is for sure about the whole process of how the fish caught are processed into canned fish for export and also sold back in the country. That is, the whole process is unhygienic in terms of storage, movement, the handling of fish and more during that process.

This is no doubt the reason why the exported frozen loins did not meet International quality standards, because after all, fish that go bad, rotting with maggots already nesting in them are not thrown away, they are also processed into the cans like every other fish and they all look the same on the shelves in the supermarkets both locally and internationally.

Pictures coming out of the factory and onto the internet are very disturbing. Cameras are banned from the factory for the obvious reason here, but certain concerned individuals still manage to take a picture here and there and expose the dirt behind RD’s closed doors with everyone else on the internet.

Photo Caption: RD Workers succumbing to the tyranny, threats and harsh working conditions of their owners who do not care about hygiene.

As a result, the RD Management with the motive to keep everything ‘hush hush’ and under wraps has been making mass terminations of its workers who are suspected to be activists, it has been paying bribes and fueling up the Madang police vehicles’ fuel tanks whenever necessary, and it keeps the Madang Provincial Labor Officer, Peter Neimani on payroll, gave him a nice vehicle and all his kid’s school fees paid for.

As reported in the media, RD’s equipment, facilities and even workers will all be moved into the much controversial ‘Chinese Marine Industrial Zone’, termed as a Special Economic Zone (SEZ) to the Pacific Marine Industrial Zone (PMIZ), and now to the Madang Industrial Zone (MIZ). A continuous change of name to give the people of the Pacific and Madang that false feeling of ownership, does the trick.

This Philippines owned RD Cannery came in the name of fish. Today it is said to own a cattle farm, a piggery farm, a coca farm, coconut plantations and even buai (betelnuts) trees, who knows what more.

Now bear in mind that RD is one fish cannery causing all these countless number of problems. The upcoming SEZ, PMIZ, MIZ or whatever it will be called next, that Chinese Marine Industrial Zone (CMIZ) is said to create eleven (11) more canneries. That’s just more like RD multiplied by 11 or simply, 11 more RDs in disguise. It’s madness because no one cares enough to put an end to all these.