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The first abalone management working group meeting for the year was held on 26 May 2011. Attended by the abalone zonal representatives and departmental officials, it emerged during the course of the meeting that fisheries compliance remained the most problematic. Rather, as one zonal representative put it, there in fact is no compliance at all and where fisheries control officers were seen (at least in the Buffels Bay area) they were always talking to or helping known abalone poachers. The department's muted response to the raft of allegations and examples of compliance failures was that it was developing a comprehensive integrated fisheries compliance strategy! Another representative noted that like everything else the strategy would stay in the boardroom. And that is true especially since the department does not have the financial resources to implement any effective compliance strategy, the industry was never asked to contribute to the development of the strategy and neither doe...

Given the shocking levels of mismanagement, the lack of fisheries and institutional knowledge and increasing unhappiness of the industry (big, small and artisinal) with the fisheries branch and the (absent) Minister of Fisheries, we believe that the only way to arrest the terminal decline of fisheries management in our country is to invoke section 78 of the Marine Living Resources Act. Section 78 of the Marine Living Resources Act makes explicit provision for the assignment of ministerial powers and functions to provincial MEC's. We hold the view that the current Minister should urgently consider the assignment of her fisheries management powers and functions to the Western Cape government (we certainly would not recommend any assignment to the Eastern Cape which is effectively a failed state) in so far as - governance and administration of fisheries in the territorial waters of the Western Cape is concerned; the management of fish processing, compliance, trade and general managem...

Yes, it is sounding like the proverbial stuck record but DAFF can be counted on ill-informed and just bad decision-making almost like clock-work. On 13 May 2011 the skipper of a foreign flagged vessel landed his fishing vessel at Cape Town harbour and offloaded the vessel's fish and took on stores and bunkers as per the foreign vessel licence and permit issued under the Marine Living Resources Act. As is increasingly the norm, there were no fishery control officers in sight to monitor or record any landings (not that foreign fish landings are required to be in the presence of an FCO). The catch logs and the separate cold store reports confirmed that what was declared was in order. However, without warning on 19 May 2011, the skipper of the vessel was summarily arrested, detained, his passport confiscated and then released on payment of bail. The alleged "charge" was that the vessel offloaded fish to a cold store not listed on the permit and accordingly, breached the perm...

Feike has reported that the Minister of Fisheries made a series of sudden appearances in local fishing communities brandishing R25 million in cheques for fisheries projects. Co-incidentally, her appearance from obscurity happened days before the 2011 Local Government Elections. The Minister is now on record as stating that her R15 million project cheque give to the Gansbaai community is intended for an abalone hatchery and abalone cage ranching project (involving a further R10 million) which will employ in the region of 300 people and turn fishers in fish farmers! Just when you think this Minister cant make more ridiculous and populist statements, she proves you wrong! Is she happy to deceive the desperately poor fishers and members of these communities or does she just mouth off without question the nonsense fed to her by her officials? Either way, her comments are shocking. Firstly, fishermen are not fish farmers, let alone farmers of abalone, which is a highly complex, high risk sci...

With a week to go to the local government elections, the Minister of Fisheries (ANC) popped up out of the blue to hand a whopping R15 million of taxpayers' money to the "Gansbaai Community". Most people we spoke to from the fishing community of Gansbaai did not know about the cheque, who the "Gansbaai Community" is or what the intended purpose of the R15 million hand-out was. There is no press statement explaining this hand-out of taxpayers' money but it can be safe to assume that considering the Minister's anathema to fisheries management (remember that this Minister has never bothered to address South Africa's commercial fishing industry of 3000 quota holders who employ more than 40 000 people since her appointment in 2009), her sudden appearance with a R15 million freebie (is it going to support tik habits, abalone poaching, who knows) appears to be nothing more than an abuse of power and public funds. And we understand that on 12 May the Minister...

On 19 April 2011, the Minister of Fisheries addressed the National Assembly on her department's annual budget vote. Of the department's total budget of over R4 billion, the fisheries branch is allocated R324 million for the 2010/2011 financial year. Although less than 10% of the global departmental budget, the allocation may signal a relative return to health for the marine living resources fund as this amount is slightly less than the 2004/2005 operational budget. However, it is unclear from the budget vote if the R324 million includes staff salaries - if it does, then the MLRF remains in a desperate downward spiral as salaries would consume at least 50% of the operational budget, which will explain the parlous state of management, the chaotic administration and the lack of strategic fisheries compliance, particularly in our offshore waters. The budget vote also confirms a Minister and her senior staff to be completely out of touch with the fishing sector. We all know that des...

The fisheries department announced in April that it had completed the analysis of the performance-related data submitted by the cluster C and D fisheries in 2009 - yes it was all the way back in 2009! In a rather complex worded letter for these sectors, the DAFF notes that as the results of the performance review do not constitute "decisions", they are not reviewable and instead only once "decisions" are taken to act in terms of section 28 of the Marine Living Resources Act (MLRA), can right holders invoke their respective rights to appeal or review decisions taken, as the case may be. It has been brought to our attention that the performance review results for a number of right holders contain substantial errors. In addition, as these results are now completely out-of-date and largely irrelevant, right holders will have to be vigilant and ensure that all errors are addressed as there is little doubt that as the DAFF continues to display the hallmarks of a failed go...