Many right holders in the commercial fishing sector have commented that the rampant and uncontrolled increase in lobster poaching by the interim relief sector may be South Africa's new "Hout Bay Fishing Industries".
Perhaps the impact will be worse because unlike the Hout Bay Fishing Industries matter, the interim relief poaching crisis is being perpetrated by an entire sector in an unsystematic and undocumented manner; the Department of Fisheries has no capacity or ability to deal with the poaching (they are unable to even apprehend the correct abalone poaching vehicles after being provided with the make, model and registration details!); and the Department of Fisheries appears to have prioritised politics over economic, social and ecological sustainability.
In light of the Department's increasing failures to be able to manage, administer and oversee compliance in all our inshore fisheries (whether abalone, lobster or linefish), how could the United States government allow the repatriation of the restitution moneys owed by Bengis et al to the South African government as it is impossible that the Department of Fisheries could utilise these funds to manage the lobster fisheries and to oversee its recovery?
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