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The New Age newspaper today reports that according to the Department of Fisheries, abalone right holders should not worry as their fishing rights will be allocated before 31 July 2014 when these rights expire. According to the Department's Lionel Adendorf, the department is awaiting advice from their scientists because of the precarious biological state of the abalone resource.  It is dishonest and disingenuous statements like these that result in widespread anger and backlash against the department such as we recently witnessed with the failed 2013 fishing rights allocation process.  Instead of admitting failure with respect to developing and implementing a fishing rights allocation process for the abalone sector, we are again saddled with this unconscionable spin. First, we were told by the woeful Tina Joemat-Pettersson that abalone right holders will be allocated red steenbras to fish! When that laughable statement was exposed for the lie it is, we are now told tha...

The 31st session of the FAO's Committee on Fisheries (COFI) began on 9 June 2014 in Rome with discussions on the adoption of a  Voluntary Guidelines for Securing Sustainable Small-scale Fisheries    commencing on the morning of 10 June 2014.  Given South Africa's recent (and unlawful) 2013 fishing rights allocation process involving small-scale fishery sectors, which has caused sugnificant harm to small-scale fisheries and the communities dependent on these fisheries, the FAO Guidelines are particularly relevant and - we hope - force the Fisheries Department to review how it continues to mismanage our small-scale fisheries.  We have provided the link to the complete draft text which is being debated in Rome this week by COFI. It is not at all clear what South Africa's position is with respect to the final draft text being debated in Rome this week. It must however be noted that the Guidelines are broadly complemented by South Africa's 2012 Small Scale F...

The City Press confirmed on 8 June that the controversial former acting head of fisheries, Desmond Stevens, is the target of a Hawks investigation into allegations that he demanded millions of rands from fishermen in return for fishing rights allocations. Paul Ramaloko, spokesperson for the crime-fighting unit, told City Press that the investigation had been ongoing for more than a year. Read the full story by journalist Moyagabo Maake here .

The Sunday Times and City Press newspapers today confirm what we at Feike have been alleging for some time - that the 2013 fishing rights allocation process and our fisheries management administration under the leadership of Tina Joemat-Pettersson and her self-appointed cadre, Desmond Stevens, has descended into a cesspool of corruption and the illicit and unlawful allocation of multi-million rand quotas to ANC cadres.  The Sunday Times reveals that it has an email in which Stevens openly solicits a bribe of R100,000. In terms of the Prevention and Combatting of Corrupt Activities Act, the content of this email would almost certainly amount to an illegal gratification in terms of the Act. Conviction on such a charge carries a sentence of 15 years imprisonment. And then there are the illicit transfer of the fishing rights to the many ANC cadres, "community" representatives and connected few.  Stevens' inexplicable conduct when allocating fishing rights ( as co...

The Second Marine Living Resources Amendment Act was signed into law by the President on 19 May 2014. The Amendment Act essentially replaces the term "subsistence" in the original version of the Act with the term "small-scale commercial" and makes provision for fishing rights to be allocated to co-operatives or rather to members of coastal communities who will be herded into "fishing co-operatives" on the promise of untold riches and access to ocean's wealth. In other words, a social-welfare system using what fish we have left in our waters to placate the growing unemployed and unemployable!  Feike has previously stated (and we repeat (siiigghh) that the allocation of high-value commercial fishing rights on a "co-operative" basis has been shown to be a profound failure in this country. What our history shows us is that where community-based fishing allocations have been previously attempted, it only led to massive overfishing, intra-comm...