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Due to persistent and relentless pressure by Feike, the Department of Fisheries has been forced to accept that it cannot lawfully withhold any person's annual fishing permit and annual fishing levies are due and payable only on the issue of a valid and proper tax invoice. In other words, the obligation is on DAFF to determine the levy amount and how it is quantified and then to issue a tax invoice to each right holder requesting payment of the levy within a specified period. The Minister would be well advised to amend her levies regulations and specify the levying and payment procedures if DAFF is to legally collect any further fish levies. In short, right holders must not pay any levy to the MLRF/DAFF until and unless DAFF issues proper tax invoices. Further, DAFF cannot lawfully withhold any permit because levies are not paid. DAFF must therefore get its house in order or accept that it will not be entitled to the more than R70-90 million in levies that it ought to collect each ...

The President confirmed in November 2010 that he intends signing a further proclamation in due course transferring all fisheries-related functions currently with the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) to the Department of Fisheries (DAFF). This would mean that the extremely costly process of setting up the Oceans Branch at DEA in 2010 would have been for nought and a further indication of just how proper planning and respect for the management of public funds are of little concern to this government. It will also be interesting to see what happens with the all the duplicate staff hired by the Oceans Branch to date.

Is the Department of Fisheries refusing to issue your permits because they claim your levy is "outstanding"? And what about charging you a "penalty" on the "outstanding levy". When is your levy outstanding? Your levy payment is only outstanding once the DAFF has issued you with a proper tax invoice which is addressed to the right holder and stipulates the levy amount that is due and payable and how this amount was calculated. The tax invoice must provide you with a reasonable period from the date of issue to pay the levy. A reasonable period could be 30 days as is common practice in our commercial environment. DAFF cannot require a right holder to calculate its own levy and then to pay the levy in the absence of a proper tax invoice. How are right holders legally accounting for the transfer of funds from their business accounts to a 3rd party account (the MLRF) without a tax invoice? And how is DAFF accounting for the income in the MLRF without a correspon...

By the morning of 13 January 2011, the Minister and her officials remained in contempt of the Court Order dated 5 January 2011 which ordered her to unconditionally issue 3 permits to the abalone right holder, Mr Scott Russell. Although she initially refused to adhere to the Court Order, the Minister scrambled frantically to issue the 3 permits once Feike, together with Mr Russell's attorney, Mr Shaun Hangone of Von Lieres Cooper Barlow (VLCB), served the actual contempt of court application on her and her senior officials at the Fisheries Branch. At 12:30 on 13 January 2011, Mr Russell was finally handed all 3 of his permits. The conduct of Minister and her officials remains shocking. Firstly, they contrived bogus and unlawful grounds to "withhold" Mr Russell's permits. They refused to listen to reason, which forced Mr Russell to approach the Western Cape High Court for urgent relief and an order instructing the Minister to issue his permits. And even then, the Minist...

We do indeed need to be increasingly afraid. On 5 January 2011, Feike, together with Shaun Hangone of the law firm Von Lieres Cooper Barlow Attorneys (VLCB), secured a court order forcing the Department of Fisheries to issue 3 permits unlawfully withheld by DAFF. The Court Order stated unambiguously and clearly that the Minister (as a respondent in the matter) must issue the 3 permits withheld unlawfully by the department to the permit holder concerned. The Court Order stipulated that the Minister must issue the permits by no later than 10 January 2011. The Minister and her officials simply proceeded to ignore the Court Order. A DAFF official stated on the record that they would refuse to issue the permits unless the permit holder paid his annual abalone fish levies. DAFF was reminded by Feike and VLCB that the court order was peremptory and binding and did not make the issue of the permits subject to the payment of any levies. Furthermore, two of the permits (an abalone transport perm...

On 5 January 2011 the Western Cape High Court issued an order agreed to by DAFF to issue 3 permits DAFF had decided to summarily and unlawfully withhold. On 10 December 2010, an administrative official advised Mr Scott Russell, the spokesperson of the SA Abalone Industry Association, and an abalone right holder that his permits would not be issued. No reasons were given and Mr Russell was not allowed to make any representations regarding this apparent decision. Mr Russell was also not informed as to whether he breached any provisions of the MLRA, the permit conditions or the fisheries regulations. His permits - it was decided by someone at DAFF - would simply not be issued. Despite numerous attempts to get answers from DAFF officials, Mr Russell's urgent requests for reasons explaining why his permits were being "withheld" were simply ignored. Mr Russell then contacted Feike and we demanded that DAFF issue his permits as the "withholding" of the permits was clea...

On 4 January 2011, the United States Court of Appeals delivered a long awaited judgment ordering that Arnold Bengis, Jeffrey Noll and David Bengis of the now non-existent poaching company, Hout Bay Fishing Industries (Pty) Ltd (HBFI), pay restitution to South Africa following the most substantial illegal fishing spree in South African commercial fishing history. HBFI, under the direction of its managing director, Arnold Bengis, is responsible for plundering some of South Africa's most valuable fish stocks, including south coast rock lobster and west coast rock lobster. The exact amount that the convict Bengis and his comrades will have to pay in restitution will be determined by a US District Court but it is estimated that the Department of Fisheries' Marine Living Resources Fund could net about R363 million (US$54 million). These funds would have to be applied to the recovery of lobster stocks and to compliance. The onus will no doubt fall on the south coast rock lobster and ...

The last two months of 2010 witnessed the collapse in the price of South African lobsters on the international market by more than US$20/kg. The collapse in price has been blamed on the large scale illegal fishing by the interim relief sector dumping excess and poor quality lobsters on both the domestic and international markets. Industry sources have advised how the interim relief quota "management" process has simply been overrun by corruption, bribery, overfishing and a complete lack of monitoring. What is of greater concern is the easy access that has been gained to these quotas by organised gangs, including TRIAD elements, as they replicate their organised abalone poaching activities in the lobster sector. Feike has been advised that these operators offer cash for the interim relief quotas and simply harvest the quotas themselves for substantial profit as the quota holder is paid a few hundred or thousand rand. The cheap price at which the quota is obtained allows these ...