The Hake Long Line Appeal Decisions: #FRAPFAILURE Marches Forth

On 7 October 2023, Minister Creecy issued her hake long line appeal decisions. Her decisions have resulted in the allocation of a total of 106 rights in the hake long line fishery, which is a reduction from the 123 right holders that were active in the fishery before 28 January 2022. 

The decisions are certainly reviewable on a number of grounds and we are in the process of preparing review applications for a number of unsuccessful appellants. We will keep you updated as these matters progress through the Western Cape High Court. 

But what has become clearly apparent is that the Minster has made glaring errors in the evaluation and scoring of these appeals. For one, she has inconsistently dealt with the issue of compliance with laws such the Employment Equity Act, Skills Development Act and Skills Development Levies Act. She has unlawfully decided to deny appellants scores for these criteria despite the fact these laws do not apply to them and as such these appellants cannot be prejudiced. 

A second glaring and jarring error is the failure to simply add up scores correctly! We have come across a number of cases where the weighted scores simply do not add up to the total scores assigned by the Minister. In at least two cases, this error alone resulted in appellants being unlawfully denied rights because correctly computed, their respective total scores exceed the minimum scores required for hake long line fishing rights. 

And of course, we also have the Minister's nonsensical attempts at explaining how certain criteria were scored and evaluated. Take for example her attempt at fixing the Delegated Authority's ridiculous scoring criterion for "employee share schemes". Creecy says: "In order not to prejudice any applicant, I applied a minimum score of 1 consistently to all applicants who had no share scheme or who had responded yes to share schemes but provided no % values on this aspect, or where schemes were not applicable, were allocated zero (0)."

OK NOW READ THAT AGAIN SLOWLY. RE-READ IT AGAIN, EVEN SLOWER. NOW SKETCH THE STUPIDITY OF WHAT WE HAVE HERE!

Creecy does not wish to prejudice any applicant. (The very purpose of a scoring regime in such competitive processes IS TO PREJUDICE! Otherwise you dont get to distinguish!).

Creecy has also decided to score those with no share schemes 1 point. She has then ALSO decided to score those applicants that had no share scheme or that had responded yes to share schemes but provided no % values on this criterion 1 point. 

But then those applicants to whom share schemes are not applicable (who are these and what makes one qualify for this inapplicable status?), get zero points! 

So non-compliance is rewarded. But it gets worse.

So then one must assume she is going to tell us about those that do have share schemes and how they are scored and weighted. The next sentence starts ... and ends "scored entities with no ..."

And that is that! She literally ends the criterion mid-thought. This is supposed to be a ministerial record of decision that decides the futures of hake long line fishing companies for the next 15 years and the Minister cant even be bothered to ensure that she adopts a record of decision that even tries to make some semblance of sense... or has complete sentences. 

What is grating is that these vulgar and stupid errors are made by people literally sucking at the teats of taxpayers living large and "earning" fat salaries while ruining the lives of their "subjects". And they dont give a damn. What they produce shows they simply have no self-worth or self-respect or even shame. They simply expect you to accept the garbage they produce and be grateful they bothered to even publish these decisions.