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The West Cape News reports on the state of the Department of Fisheries and its hopeless Minister of Fisheries. The article reports that "Claims of the “imploding situation” at the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) seem to have reached a new low with a DA MP saying he and Parliamentary Oversight Committee colleagues were deliberately deceived by the department’s officials last Friday." Read the full article here .

The September edition of Noseweek has an article on the terrible twins - the Minister of Fisheries and ANC cadre, Iqbal Surve. The article states that "Minister of Agriculture & Fisheries, Tina Joemat-Pettersson, is eager to favour a fellow ANC multi-millionaire, Dr Iqbal Survé, with a R1-billion tender opening a window on all that’s wrong with the Zuma government. Her appointment and continued survival in government, despite her obvious incompetence and shocking manners, is widely attributed to her having positioned herself as the ultimate Zuma loyalist." Click here for the full article .

The statement below was issued on 25 September 2012 by the Democratic Alliance. A parliamentary visit to Simon’s Town Naval Base on Friday revealed that the state’s marine patrol and research vessels were going nowhere slowly, or so it appeared. But while the fisheries portfolio committee was being briefed by Navy and Fisheries officials, the Algoa sailed away from under our nose.  In a bizarre twist of fate, Smit Amandla has been appointed by the Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) to take operational control of this research vessel. But this is the multinational company against which Fisheries Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson claims she has prima facie evidence for corruption. They had held the contract to operate and maintain all state-owned marine patrol vessels for ten years until November last year The contract was controversially handed to politically connected Sekunjalo Consortium and then withdrawn under dubious circumstances.  I have today written to...

It would appear that senior Naval and Fisheries officials deliberately misled and lied to members of the Portfolio Committee of Fisheries during their visit to Simonstown on Friday 21 September 2012.  These officials appear to have deliberately misled and/or lied to the MP's with respect to the following -  That Smit Amandla was re-appointed to take operational control of the Algoa research vessel. It is understood that the Africana will follow suite shortly. It appears that these procedures were put in place some 5 weeks previously. This despite the Fisheries Minister's bluster that she had prima facie evidence that Smit Amandla was involved in corruption and that the matter was being investigated by the SA Police. The Minister's statement is in fact still on the DAFF website ; and The status of the vessels. It is apparent that the officials deliberately painted a false picture of the state of apparent vessel disrepair and deliberately failed to inform the MP...

Feike has been informed that the Department of Environmental Affairs has taken back control of the fisheries research vessel, the Algoa. And the Africana will follow shortly. Both vessels have been removed from the naval registry and are back on the SAMSA civilian vessel registry.  In what is a clear indication of how incompetent and damaging the fisheries minister has been, Environmental Affairs has been able to get the Algoa sea-ready and sailing in about 7 days. The Algoa actually sailed from Simonstown on Friday, 21 September 2012, the day the Fisheries Portfolio Committee visited Simonstown to inspect the patrol and research vessels.  And in a further indictment of the destructive, petulantly childish and personally vindictive behaviour of the fisheries minister, Environmental Affairs got the Algoa sea-ready in a week under the crew and operational leadership of Smit Amandla - the company against whom the fisheries minister has launched a personal vendetta and la...

Environmentalist, Laura Law, wrote on Feike's Facebook page  that she opposed the Western Cape government's decision to permit farmers to kill certain predatory animals (caracals and jackals) in a bid to protect agricultural livestock. Laura holds the view that there are alternatives to the present scheme of permits that authorise farmers to kill a specified number of these predatory animals. Feike offered Laura our BLOG platform to publish her views on the possible alternative methods to the current predator management scheme implemented by the Western Cape government. Here are her views on the subject. We note that these views and opinions do not reflect the views or opinions of Feike. The "Bredell Cull" commenced in July 2011 and came about after DA Minister of Environmental Affairs and Development Planning, Anton Bredell, allegedly pressured CapeNature into issuing 480 farmers with blanket permits to kill up to ten predators per day over a six month period. T...

On 21 September 2012, members of the Portfolio Committee on Fisheries descended on Simonstown harbour to inspect South Africa's fleet of once state-of-the art but now abandoned fisheries patrol and research vessels.  We provide the press statement issued this morning by the DA's Pieter van Dalen, a member of that Committee. What is apparent is that South Africa has collapsed from being a one-time leader in fisheries management into being nothing more than a pariah fisheries state, unable to undertake routine fisheries research and unable to protect our Exclusive Economic Zone as we are obliged to do under the UN Convention on the Law of the Seas. As the recent minor oil spill from the stranded Seli I  indicated, we are also unable to ensure basic coastal and ocean pollution management and control.  South Africa's fisheries management has been singularly decimated by the Tina Joemat-Pettersson, the minister of fisheries and without doubt the worst minister respons...

The Portfolio Committee on Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, (National Assembly) will be briefed by the Minister of Fisheries on the short, medium and long-term plans for the management of the Fisheries Branch, including the transfer of functions from the Department of Environmental Affairs to Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF). The Minister will also provide an overview on the possibility of Seal Ranching. The briefing will take place on 11 September 2012. Members of the industry are welcome and must attend at the Visitors Entrance on Plein Street, Parliamentary Precinct. Venue: Committee Room E539, Fifth Floor, National Assembly Building, 09:00 We cant help but note that the Minister will be briefing the portfolio committee on the transfer of functions from DEA to DAFF only 2 years after the fact!

A German website has reported that the South African fisheries department under Minister Tina Joemat-Pettersson is mired in allegations of corruption and is an "absolute disaster". It furthermore confirms the fact that there is rebellion in the air... The article can be accessed by clicking here .

SAPA reports that the fisheries department has handed over an investigation into suspected internal maladministration and corruption to the police. "The investigation is effectively out of the hands of the department and the minister," the department's acting director general Sipho Ntombela said on Thursday. "Once complete, the SAPS [SA Police Service] will advise the department on appropriate actions to be taken." In March, the department started an investigation into the awarding of a tender for the management and maintenance of the department's fleet of research and fisheries patrol vessels. The company, Smit Amandla Marine, had been providing the vessel management function to the government for the past decade. "The initial investigation was carried out by a reputable forensic firm which uncovered that there are possible cases of corruption in the fisheries branch," Ntombela said. "The investigation by the SAPS is a culmin...

The most recent leaking of oil from the Seli I vessel off Blouberg confirms just how dysfunctional national government in this country has become. Between the Departments of Transport, Environmental Affairs and Fisheries, no one seems to know who is responsible for sorting this mess out three years after the vessel was abandoned by its owners and insurers.  As Prof John Hare of UCT has pointed out, South Africa remains hopelessly under-insured should a large oil spill occur along our coast. South Africa is presently only insured for approximately R185 million while a significant oil spill could result in clean-up costs in the billions of Rands. Despite government being warned repeatedly of this over the past decade, the Department of Transport can't seem to sort something this basic out. Can you imagine the levels of incompetence that plague a department if it is unable to attend to something as simple as regularly reviewing and adjusting what is effectively an insurance polic...