Reward Excellence

Reward excellence in the maritime and fisheries sectors by nominating a person or company for the 2012/2013 SAMSA Maritime Industry Awards. There are a number of award categories. For more details click here.

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Why Dion George's Removal as Fisheries Minister is a GOOD DECISION: Some Facts Not Considered by the Daily Maverick

The Daily Maverick has over the past few days since it emerged that Dion George would be removed as the SA Minister of Forestry, Fisheries & Environment published two substantial pieces preferring view points opposing and objecting to his removal. The premise of the objections is that his replacement - Willie Aucamp - is an avid hunter and close to the hunting lobby, drumming up fears that South Africa will somehow adopt a pro-canned hunting policy despite this being contrary to Aucamp's own party's publicly stated policies.  If canned hunting is against DA policy and is certainly contrary to SA national ecological policy, then the fears being raised by the Daily Maverick pieces are misplaced in my view.  There are some other facts as to why he was fired as the Minister responsible for forestry, FISHERIES & the environment.  Dion George was most likely removed as fisheries minister because of his record of ridiculously bad decisions that ARE IN FACT CONTRARY TO D...
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Minister George's Squid Appeal Decisions: Another Set of Bad Decisions!

On 6 May 2025 (almost week after Minister George was required by the Western Cape High Court to publish his appeal decisions), Dion George issued his revised squid appeal decisions. The original appeal decisions taken by Barbara Creecy were reviewed and set aside by the Courts last year (as were dozens of hake long line and small pelagic decisions, but we digress).  The squid appeal decisions are problematic for at least 2 reasons and once again demonstrate a Minister who lacks access to proper advisors and importantly demonstrates that the DA (As a political party) simply have no clue about fishing, policy and growth in this sector. And this is incredibly tragic given that, as an opposition party, the DA did actually have substantive policy and ideas to fix and grow fisheries ! Reason 1: Firstly, the Minister has allocated a total of 6 rights to new entrants but allocated them each a crew allocation limited to 4 men - also called the TAE or total applied effort limit.  What t...
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DDG OF FISHERIES TO RETIRE ON 1 DECEMBER 2025

It was announced late last week that Sue Middleton - the DDG for SA Fisheries - will retire effective 1 December 2025.  And, as is traditional in South Africa when a public official retires or dies, the person is eulogized regardless of any reality. Facts are shelved and mythology is born!  FISHSA put out a bootlicking statement listing her "achievements". The farce is that none of the members of FISHSA actually believe the nonsense because they tell me that over coffee and in the corridors!  Consider this public statement issued on behalf of Minister Dion George by his current chief of staff. This is the current Fisheries Minister's opinion of Middleton and her leadership of the fisheries department. Some paragraphs are worth quoting:  "Fishing rights allocations and fisheries management under previous ANC ministers have been a constant source of strife and suffering for coastal communities... Many of the commercial rights allocations (and non-allocations) in the p...
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