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 this means is that each new entrant right holder cannot deploy more than 4 men on their squid vessels to fish for squid. The irrationality of this decision is obvious.
Firstly, there is no squid vessel that can carry 4 crew. Squid vessels are typically 15-20m freezer vessels that have minimum crew allocations that far exceed 4 crew! A 4-man crew could be found on very small traditional line fish boats that catch snoek and yellowtail; not on a multi-million rand squid freezer vessel.
Secondly, allocating 4 crew rights means that the Minister is simply unserious. He is unserious about growing the fishery. He is unserious about empowering new entrant right holders because they can only ever be paper quota holders who sell their permits to vessel owners who are THEMSELVES short of rights on their own vessels and cant put vessels to sea because they have too few crew! And he is unserious about his own fishing policies which prohibit paper quota holders.
A few days ago, Sea Harvest launched review proceedings against the George because his decisions in November 2024 in the horse mackerel fishery did exactly that - allocate meaningless rights which can only be paper quota holders.
Reasons 2:
The second reason that Dion George's decisions are problematic (and reviewable) is because the decision irrationally allocates crew rights to vessels despite the fact that allocations exceed the legal carrying capacity of a number of vessels.
Historically, the allocation of effort (or crew rights) on vessels was methodically undertaken to ensure a right holder's nominated vessel had the capacity to carry the number of crew allocated to that vessel. So for example, VESSEL ABC owned by right holder XYZ is authorized by SAMSA to carry no more than 20 crew. However, VESSEL ABC is not only nominated by owner XYZ who is granted a right but rights are also allocated to 2 other right holders who concluded access agreements with right holder XYZ. The process of allocating crew rights on that vessel (and thus the effort allocations to each right holder) means that the SUM OF THE TOTAL NUMBER OF CREW allocated to each of the 3 right holders using VESSEL ABC cannot exceed 20 crew - OBVIOUSLY. The Minister must then consult each right holder and determine how they wish for that 20 crew to be split amongst the three right holders and that decision is then given effect to in the Minister's Appeal GPR.
That was the process followed back in 2015 when I led the appeals process as advisor to the Minister at the time and avoided any litigation as a result because the decision involved the direct consultation with and input from right holders.
Dion George's decisions are thus irrational as crew allocations per vessel now exceed what vessels can lawfully carry. If not reviewed and set aside, the practical consequence is that the "excess" crew rights will also just be sold to other vessel owners who are short of crew rights (Again, because George's decisions failed to consider the intricacies of the effort allocation methodology).
A perpetual cycle of paper quota crew rights will then be established and by the time rights are re-allocated in 12 years' time, we will effectively have institutionalized and legalized the unlawful system of paper quota holders in this fishery.
... And lets not even talk about that catastrophically disastrous decision to award squid rights to those parasitic co-operatives who do nothing; invest nothing; fish for nothing; but simply demand payments from rights holders to buy the latest Mercedes and more Louis Vuitton!
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