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On Sunday morning 23 February 2014, the Fisheries Minister desperately sought to fix the unfixable 2013 fishing rights allocation process (FRAP) by announcing three measures to appease fishermen.  Firstly, the Minister announced that she appointed a law firm, together with Professor Halton Cheadle, to review the 2013 rights allocation process and advise her whether the process met legal muster.  On this point, the appointment of Prof Cheadle must be welcomed. Halton served as the principle legal adviser to the 2001 and 2005 fishing rights allocation processes. Having worked extremely closely with Halton (whom I do idolise - I admit), I know Halton to be fiercely objective and perhaps one of the most impressive lawyers in this country today. There is no doubt that he will speak absolute to truth to  Tina Joemat-Pettersson.  However, and quite frankly, even if Prof Cheadle advises the Minister that her 2013 process was flawed from the start as she failed t...

It is now official. The Department of Fisheries is actually supporting the creation of an entire class of paper quotas in sectors such as the hake handline fishery. The Department has allocated hake handline fishing rights to applicants without any regard to whether they have a suitable vessel and where they reside.  The consequence is that we now have Departmental officials unlawfully phoning previous right holders and begging them to make their fishing vessels available to certain specific "new entrant" right holders. This confirms that the Department has allocated nearshore fishing rights to people who are not fishers and who are unable to fish the resource for which they have been allocated rights. We again ask: How does this support "transformation" and "food security" as the Department repeatedly spews forth?  If these new entrant right holders cannot fish their fishing quotas, who is going to do so? And how will this benefit the SA fishing ...

The deadline for the submission of appeals in the traditional line fish and the other 7 fishing sectors passed at 16h00 on 21 February 2014. It is important to note that this deadline is not cast in stone especially since many right holders have not yet received scoresheets and other documentation required to lodge a proper, complete and adequate appeal.  All applicants who receive their scoresheets and further documents such as the scoresheets of other applicants in their sector, in the coming days and weeks and reckon they can either appeal or supplement their appeals against the decision to refuse them a fishing right, will have 30 days from the date on which they received their scoresheets and/or additional documents to file an appeal.  On Monday 24 February, line fishers will have their urgent application to extend the 28 February fishing exemption deadline extended heard at 10am before the Western Cape High Court. This application also paves the way for a review...