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The Tuna Pole General Published Reasons document suffers from the same fatal legal flaws as the KZN Prawl Trawl GPR , including the lack of any rational connection between the decisions taken and the attainment of any policy objectives. Once again, the GPR fails to explain to what extent any of the stated policy objectives have been met, including the levels of black empowerment in the fishery post the allocation of these rights.  However, there are a number of additional concerns with the tuna pole GPR. These include the following: 1. Some 107 long term right holders appear to have been arbitrarily denied a second set of long term fishing rights. Once again, applicants are simply listed with no scores attached to their names and no scoring and weighting attaching to criteria are made available in the GPR. 2. The delegated authority states that the applications of 20 co-operatives have been reserved pending adoption of the Second MLRA Amendment Bill which seeks to, int...

The KZN Prawn Trawl General Published Reasons document that was published on the DAFF website today is confirmation of just how seriously flawed this rights allocation process has been. It is littered with unlawfulness. It is thin on rationale and reasoning underpinning the decisions and simply fails to set out the scoring and criteria used to weight long term right holders and new entrants! How very bizarre.  Firstly, the GPR is silent on whether and to what extent the 9 policy objectives provided for in the KZN fishing policy were met. The GPR does not state what the black economic empowerment profile of the fishery is - it was 67% black owned during the long term rights process. The GPR is silent on the extent to which the KZN prawn resource is recovering. The GPR is silent on how this allocation will promote fair labour practices in the prawn trawl fishery. [We will ignore the erroneous reference to "tuna long line" in the GPR as this is clearly another "copy-an...

We provide below a brief tabular summary of the number of rights, vessels and crew that operated in the line fish, squid, shark demersal and tuna pole fisheries immediately prior to and after the 30 December 2013 announcement. The summary appears to indicate that - 1. The 30 December announcement has suddenly and without prior warning decimated the number of operators in the line, squid and tuna pole fisheries. The allocations in these sectors have possibly wiped out an estimated 280 vessels and 2600 jobs in just these four sectors alone; and 2. Critically, there is no information available on the numbers of vessels and crew that have been allocated in each of these sectors, which only compounds uncertainty and confusion. Fishery 2005-2013 Vessels & Crew 2005-2013 Rights Post 30 Dec Rights Post 30 Dec Crew & Vessels Squid 136 / 2422 121 93 Unknown Tuna ...

On 30 December 2013 DAFF announced that 17% of applicants were successful in the 2013 long term fishing rights allocation process. The announcement itself was and remains a farcical, insulting and meaningless event. Lets be clear about this.  The announcement yesterday was farcical because it is illegal and a violation of section 25(1) of the MLRA. A fishing right quite simply cannot be granted or issued without a fees gazette being in place first .   Further, the department has no legal authority to issue a "blanket" exemption to the unknown list of successful right holders to operate without fishing permits and vessel licences.  The announcement was farcical because no one knows who is "successful". Although DAFF stated that "successful" applicants would be notified by SMS and email, no one we know of in the line fishery, squid and tuna pole sectors received such messages by midday on 31 December 2013. DAFF also failed to publish the lists o...

The Fisheries Department today announced that it had allocated 593 fishing quotas across 8 fishing sectors. 2870 Applicants had failed to secure a fishing right. Decisions on 22 applications were reserved.  The Fisheries Department today announced that it had allocated 593 fishing quotas across 8 fishing sectors. 2870 Applicants had failed to secure a fishing right. Decisions on 22 applications were reserved.  However, the department continued to embroil the process in secrecy and confusion. DAFF failed to make public who the successful applicants are in each sector and which applications were subjected to "reserved" decisions and when these reservations would be resolved. DAFF did however confirm that successful applicants would be allowed to continue to fish without any fishing permits or vessel licences and that these successful applicants would be informed by "SMS" and emails. This illegality and violation of the provisions of the MLRA would be per...

It is inevitable that the 2013 Fishing Rights Application Process will be subjected to a number of review applications - as indeed both the medium term and long term processes were - by unsuccessful applicants. The only difference is that the 2013 process has more proverbial holes than that infamous slice of swiss cheese. And of course both the medium and long term fishing right processes passed constitutional muster, most notably by the Constitutional Court itself in the Bato Star decision.  So what are the best grounds to review any decision that denies you a second long term fishing right? Lets start with what you dont want to do . You certainly dont want to ask a court of law to determine whether any decision could have been done in a better way or that the decision of scientific experts should be second guessed. Courts simply will not substitute the decisions of experts with their own especially when your application proposes a "better alternative". Of course, if fi...

We all know the levels of incompetent leadership at the Fisheries Department mean that it is unable to deploy fisheries patrol and research vessels, or allocate fishing quotas in time. But it is increasingly apparent that DAFF is now unable to even ensure that fishing seasons commence on time any more.  The West Coast Rock Lobster fishing season starts on 15 October each year. The TAC this year was announced on 6 November.  The abalone season commences on 1 November. By mid-December, the Department refused to inform the SA Abalone Industry Association of the catch limits for the final season of the current long term period! Then, with less than 24 hours' notice, abalone zonal representatives were summonsed to the Department's offices in Cape Town on 19 December where the TAC was announced. Without consultation, the Department summarily reduced the TAC by more than 30% from 150 tons to 96 tons.  The inability to ensure proper consultation with industry bodies ...

The Fisheries Department's ardent arrogance and contemptuous incompetence has confirmed what Feike has been for more than 12 months now. This bunch of hapless cadres led by the most incorrigible of Ministers could never have lawfully and timeously allocated fishing rights even if an Idiot's Guide to Allocating Fishing Rights was tailor drafted for them 3 years ago! I recall being telephoned while on an overseas assignment for the European Union in March 2011. The caller was one Selby Bokaba - the Fisheries Minister's then spokesperson. Dear Selby bemoaned the fact that a recent blog article referred to the Minister as either "dishonest" or "incompetent" or "both"! Selby wanted to know if I could meet at the Minister's office at 120 Plein Street to instead discuss how we could work together "rather than against each other". My first meeting upon returning to SA was at 120 Plein Street and to this day, I cant recall the discuss...

Well, Friday the 20th has come and passed. The department closes its doors on Tuesday, 24 December 2013 for the holiday season but still not a single fishing right of the more than 1000 than ought to be allocated BEFORE 31 December 2013, has been allocated.  It has of course been patently clear for months now that the department's promises that it would be able to allocate fishing rights by September 2013 and then "before" the rights expire on 31 December 2013 were just more false promises.  The SA Tuna Association today received written confirmation from the department that fishing rights will in all likelihood not be allocated by 31 December 2013 and that fishing boats must simply return to port by midnight on 31 December 2013.  Even if fishing rights are miraculously issued between Monday 23 December and Tuesday 24 December 2013, no "right holder" will be able to go fishing on 1 January 2014 as the department has still not gazetted the fees for t...

There are less than 20 days to go to 31 December 2013 when some 1000 fishing rights in 8 commercial and artisinal fishing sectors automatically revert back to the SA government, summarily leaving 1000 quota holders without fishing rights and threatening more than 5000-6000 direct jobs.  Is this Tina Joemat-Pettersson's new year's present to the fishing industry? Both the Minister and her staff have repeatedly promised that fishing rights would have been long allocated by now. In fact, the department's most recent and current timetable on the allocation of fishing rights continues to state that all fishing rights would be allocated by September .... 2013!!  Perhaps what is most telling BUT concerning is the loud silence on the status of the allocation process. DAFF and its Minister refuse to issue a single press statement or provide any assurance to very distrusting and worried fishing industry.  For one, the Fisheries Department has still not published its pr...

On 5 December, shortly after the Public Protector released her final report entitled "Docked Vessels" on the R800 million vessel management tender awarded to the Sekunjalo Marine Services Consortium ("Sekunjalo"), Sekunjalo Investments Limited, which is entirely related to the Consortium issued a statement saying it was vindicated. That people such as the DA's Pieter van Dalen had "pilloried" the company in the media suggesting that the company lacked the expertise to undertake the tender and that Sekunjalo had been involved in "corrupt practices".  Sekunjalo's statement continued by stating that these "defamatory statements had been thoroughly debunked by the Public Protector". What is a plainly clear is that perhaps Sekunjalo did not actually read the Public Protector's report before issuing the statement. The "defamatory statements" had certainly not been debunked by the Public Protector. In fact, rathe...