~

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...