What is without question, is that the last three consecutive fishing rights allocation processes in 2013, 2016 and 2022 have been increasing failures.
The most recent FRAP was not only 2 years late but the appeals process remains incomplete almost 2 years after the first rights were allocated! The catastrophic social and economic harms faced by historic right holders alone who unlawfully lost their rights back in February 2022 are simply ignored by the Minister. In fact, she is on record in her most recent press statement of 4 October saying that she is of the view that no applicant is being prejudiced by her appallingly delayed appeal decisions.
The Minister is thus of the view that being unlawfully deprived on an income for 2 years is without prejudice. (It would be useful to understand if this Minister or any of her comrades would be willing to forgo an income for two years given that these wise cadres do not consider it harmful to be without incomes?)
South Africans are increasingly vocal about the desperate need to remove the ANC and its cancerous parasitic class of civil servant cadres from power next year. The same applies to a majority of the members of the SA fishing industry (although they will never publicly admit it). The corridor discussions are clear. If there is any serious hope that this country is able to rebuild, it will only be if the ANC is flushed into the sewers of history.
From the perspective of the fishing industry, a new government could offer the incentive of a revised fisheries management regime and policy direction. One that moves us away from these destructive and corrupt fishing rights allocation processes to an alternative system. One that fundamentally steers policy toward growth and not redistribution.
Shortly after the allocation of long term fishing rights in 2005, I had proposed that we start gradually migrating certain fisheries toward a system of tradeable fishing quotas - (at the time, it was proposed to start with KZN prawn trawl, Patagonian tooth fish and tuna long line). I remain of the opinion that the industrial fisheries should be managed in terms of a system of individually transferable quotas albeit subject to pre-negotiated performance objectives that give effect to national objectives as fishing quotas remain subject to regulation in terms of the public trust doctrine and fisheries must be exploited for the benefit of the greater public good.
Government's involvement in the determination of who gets to fish what quotas must be extinguished as it clearly cannot determine who can best fish anything most efficiently and in the best interests of society and the economy.
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