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In May 2019, the previous Minister of Fisheries proposed allocating 50% of rights in the abalone and line fish sectors and 25% of squid rights to the small scale fishing sector. That proposal - we thought - died a natural death, as it should have.  In May 2019, we wrote an article explaining why allocating any rights to small-scale fishers in the squid fishery would be impractical, unaffordable, unlawful and only create a class of community fronts who would have to beg commercial vessel owners with the crew to actually fish the rights.  Squid is certainly not small-scale fishery as we explain below in red font.  The full article is available here . The current Minister, Barbara Creecy, has now rekindled this daft proposal (GG Notice No. 1129 of 23 October 2020) by proposing to allocate 50% of rights and effort in the traditional linefishery and abalone sectors, and 25% of effort in the squid sector, to the "small-scale" fishing sector. The following extracts of that arti...

New entrant investors seeking to access the South African fishing industry via the next round of fishing rights allocations scheduled for 2021 (or possibly even 2022), should not wait until the finalisation of the scoring evaluation criteria before structuring their businesses to comply with these criteria.  Having advised on fishing rights allocations before, the contrived "restructuring" of businesses once the scoring and weighting criteria are published or shortly after the final invitations to apply for rights are gazetted, are clear indications of application fronts. This applies particularly to the ownership and management profiles of companies.  It is well known that companies are being fraudulently set up with black female domestic workers and gardeners to front for their masters. This is the consequence of black economic empowerment laws. These laws have unquestionably harmed more than they could conceivably have helped.  New entrants (And even existing right hol...

Toward the end of 2019, the Minister of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries conceded a review application brought by Seavuna Fishing Company (Pty) Ltd & Others in the hake inshore trawl fishery. The consequence was that rights granted to new entrants by the Minister at the time were set aside and the minister was instructed to reconsider the appeals filed. More than 12 months later, the Minister has failed to fix this. The appeals remain outstanding more than 4 years after rights were first allocated. New entrant right holders in this fishery remain in limbo as their quota proportions remain unconfirmed. This prevents investment, long-term business planning and of course any possible job creation.  And now we face the prospect of an even more significant High Court decision which will set aside in its entirety the allocation of 30 new entrant rights in the horse mackerel fishery. This High Court application was brought by Blue Continent Products (Pty) Ltd, Sea Harvest Corporati...

On 8 October 2020, the Department of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries invited all and sundry to participate in a Socio-Economic Impact Assessment Study (SEIAS) Virtual Workshop hosted by a department within the presidency charged with overseeing this policy requirement.  In short, 4 days before the Minister's promised gazetting of draft fishing policies for the next Fishing Rights Allocation Process (FRAP), the department was trying to understand how it should lay the foundations for a 12 storey building whose first floor must be cast on 12 October 2020!  To say that the minister lied about her department's state of preparedness in response to parliamentary questions on this subject matter to the Official Opposition is now patently obvious.  In 12 months' time fishing rights in 12 fishing sectors would have to have been allocated for some time. The appeals processes ought to be in full swing. The South Coast Rock Lobster fishing rights and appeals processes would have ...

On 20 June 2020, Minister Creecy issued a government gazette which purported to confirm that the duration of period of an undefined category of fishing rights was extended to 31 December 2021. The gazette in question stated that -  "Cabinet supported the decision to extend the timeframes for dealing with the fishing rights allocation process in commercial fishing sectors, which will expire on 31 December 2020. The timelines were accordingly extended to 31 December 2021." We have repeatedly set out the bases on which we believe that any attempt by the minister or Cabinet to "extend" the validity period of fishing rights is ultra vires and thus unlawful. See, for example, our opinion piece on this subject matter here and  here . The wording of the above-mentioned gazette does not explicitly confirm any authorisation by Cabinet that the fishing right termination dates for fisheries (30 September 2020 for South Coast Rock Lobster and 31 December 2020 for the remaining ...