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Feike has been informed that Parliament's Joint Tagging Committee has confirmed that the MLRA Amendment Bill introduced by the Fisheries Minister was incorrectly tagged as a Section 75 Bill. As Feike has repeatedly stated since the first draft Bill was published for comment, the Bill ought to have been tagged as a Section 76 Bill. And now the Tagging Committee agrees.  A Section 76 Bill, once passed by the National Assembly, must then formally be submitted to the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) for further deliberation, which will initially be undertaken by the Select Committee for Agriculture (the equivalent of the Fisheries Portfolio Committee in the National Assembly). The NCOP can adopt the Amendment Bill without any amendment, in which case the Bill will be forwarded to the President for assent and signature. The NCOP can also reject the Bill or propose amendments. In such cases, Section 76 of the Constitution makes provision for very specific procedures to be adher...

The Second MLRA Amendment Bill (2013) currently before Parliament was recently subjected to a 2-day public hearing on 15 and 16 October 2013. We have previously explained what the legislative process is for a bill once introduced into Parliament. The first step of course, is that the bill must go to the joint tagging committee for it to be tagged in accordance with the Constitution. If one recalls, it was and remains Feike's view that that the Bill is NOT a section 75 Bill but a section 76 Bill (A bill that must be considered and voted for by at least 5 of the 9 provinces in the NCOP) as it impacts on one or more of the provinces. Of course, the Fisheries Minister introduced the Bill into Parliament as a Section 75 Bill.  It now appears that in the mad panic to get the Bill before the Fisheries Portfolio Committee, the Bill was never sent to the Joint Tagging Committee and it was in fact debated and subjected to public consultation as an incorrectly tagged bill. ...

Over the course of the past 2 days of initial public hearings on the proposed Marine Living Resources Act, Second Amendment Bill (2013), the fisheries portfolio committee clearly sought direction from those presenting comment and opinion on the appropriateness or otherwise of the content of the Amendment Bill.  As one would expect, the portfolio committee was subjected to a lot of political rhetoric. Then there were also cogent pleas from fishermen recounting the failed SACFC co-operative project in South Africa's recent past. Others spoke of the virtues of co-operatives and how these would summarily address coastal poverty and the lack of access to fishing but without providing any examples or proof of this.  So how is the Portfolio Committee to step forward responsibly and eventually adopt an amendment bill that will not cause massive harm to the South African fishing industry and to its small-scale and subsistence fishers? Our presentation to the Portfolio Comm...

During yesterday's (15 October) first day of parliamentary hearings on the proposed Amendments to the Marine Living Resources Act of 1998, it became apparent that the politics of ignorance was the name of the game.  There is little doubt that fishing communities and large swathes of fishermen are seriously angry with what is happening in the fishing industry. This is clear from the number of fisher lobby groups and NGO's that have come into being over the past few years. It is also clear from just talking to fishers at the slipways and harbours that they are not happy with the current state of play.  But, the politics of ignorance which has largely been mastered by the fisheries department's temporary and acting senior managers, COSATU and certain politicians seeks to try and punt that the present catastrophic state of the fisheries sectors, including coastal poverty and unemployment is the fault of the fishing quota allocations process and previous (ie 2001 and 20...

During a heated debate in the fisheries portfolio committee on Wednesday, Mr Salam Abram called Minister Joemat-Pettersson a "liar". And we believe quite correctly. We have on a number of occasions exposed the Minister's deceit and dishonesty.  The ANC has confirmed that it will be taking disciplinary steps against Mr Abram.  The portfolio committee meeting was a shambolic affair with the Minister accusing the entire committee of incompetence and preventing her department from functioning. It was a farcical spectacle with ANC members (except for Abram) simply sitting in their seats happy to be insulted by a a grossly incompetent and ignorant Minister. (One has to wonder how these ANC MP's prop themselves up without a backbone but perhaps the sheer desire to keep their positions at the feeding trough helps). The Minister has also accused the DA's Pieter van Dalen of using a derogatory term, referring to her as a "teef" (Afrikaans equivalent f...

When the Minister and her officials LIED about the circumstances that resulted in the 2012-2013 lobster TAC remaining unchanged, we warned of three important consequences.  The first was that this unlawful, populist and ignorant decision would result in a SASSI downgrade for lobster. In May 2013, WWF announced that it would downgrade lobster from the green to orange (think twice before you buy) list.   The second was the impact of this decision on small-scale fishers who sell a significant part of their frozen catches to local buyers. A number of responsible "green" hoteliers, restauranteurs and seafood retailers have now stopped buying the famed west coast lobster.  And the third was that by not incrementally reducing the TAC as set out in the recovery plan, the 2013-2014 TAC would have to be substantially reduced. Feike predicted a 15-20% cut. The 2012-2013 proposed cut was 6% which was ignored by our ignorant Minister.  Feike has now learnt that t...