A Revised FRAP 2021 Timetable: Simply Impractical and Unachievable

On 10 November 2020, a month after the minister failed to honour her undertaking of gazetting the draft fishing sector policies for "FRAP 2021", a new set of timelines were presented to Parliament. 

In short, the new timelines are 6months delayed BUT confirms that all fishing rights and appeals will be completed before 31 December 2021. In other words, the revised timeline is even more ridiculous than the previous one.  

Here is the convoluted thinking of the revised timeline:

• Appointment of FRAP Service Providers: Nov 2020 – Jan 2021 (A key problem with the types of service providers who services have been identified is that there is no business analyst or process experts to be appointed. In addition, the advertisement does not seek to appoint any IT specialists which means the FRAP will certainly be an ancient hard copy application process).
• Finalise Small-scale resource splits and Commencement of Allocation of Fishing Rights: Nov 2020 (This is entirely unlikely as the traditional line fish, squid and abalone sectors have confirmed that they would oppose any splitting of the resource given that any allocation of small-scale rights to co-operatives in the squid and abalone sectors would be entirely unlawful).
• Review and Finalisation of current Fishing Policies: Jan-July 2021 (The glaring anomaly is the sudden removal of any mention about compliance with the SEIAS that are required FOR EACH OF THE 12 FISHING SECTORS. 6 months to review, draft, consult on and finalise 12 individual fishery sector policies, application forms, fees and allocation processes is simply not practically possible given that the department has not achieved less over the past 18 months).
• Invitation for Commercial Fishing Rights: June/July 2021 (See previous bullet. If the ambitious policy review and finalisation process is set to be completed in July, the simultaneous commencement of the application process is simply impossible. More so, given the next bullet point!)
• Adjudication of Applications and Allocation of Fishing Rights: July – Nov 2021 (Does this mean applicants will be given mere days or hours to complete application forms before they are submitted and simultaneously evaluated AND decided! The Minister is committing to evaluate and decide 1000s of applications across 12 fishing sectors in less than 5 months when she has failed to decide 70 appeals in hake inshore trawl in 18 months and failed to allocate 300 abalone rights since 2013. Ok). 
• Appeals Process: Oct - Dec 2021 (Legally impossible given that rights allocation processes (and no mention of the quantum allocation process consultation and finalisation will still be ongoing and that a minimum 30 day period must pass between each applicant receiving its decisions and the submission of appeals. This is then followed buy the preparation of mandatory appeal reports on each appeal before these are forwarded to the Minister for consideration. Again 90 days to DECIDE appeals is legally and practically impossible. A extremely efficient appeals process that complies with all legal requirements would take between 4 and 6 months to complete). 

This timetable has been produced by people who simply do not understand fisheries, administrative law obligations and practical considerations pertaining to a fishing rights allocation process. Compliance with the public consultation and administrative law requirements of the Promotion of Administrative Justice Act alone renders this timetable unattainable. 

This FRAP timetable is dead in the water... Again.