The Foolishness of Dion George.

Being the first DA appointed Fisheries Minister, we held out much hope that Dion George would significantly move away from the catestrophic policies and incomptent management that has defined fisheries management in this country for some 15 years now. 

ANC fisheries policy since Joemat-Petterssen has been defined by corruption, incompetence, typical redistribution of a contracting quota pie to more and more "fishers" with the consequnce that nearshore fisheries have essentially all collapsed and of the 22 healthy and functioning commercial fisheries we had back in 2005, we are down to 13 at best today. And yet we have 1000's more quota holders! 

The DA of course supposedly prides itself on its strategies of "growth", competence and collaboration with industry / fishers to grow the SA economy. Minister's George's leadeership since 3 July 2024 has been a copy-and-paste of the incompetence and dithering that has defined ANC mismanagement of our fisheries since Marthinus Van Schalkwyk. 

What makes George's leadership at fisheries so much more stark in his failure, is the plain-sight comparison to the radical changes his colleagues are making at Home Affairs and Public Works, for example. 

George could have - 

• fixed the corruption and incompetence endemic in fisheries compliance and administration. He was given the names and evidence. 
• refused to continue to implement ANC fisheries policies that simply allocate unviable and unsustainable quotas to "co-operative" communities led by sheisters and corrupt ANC-appointed chiefs.
• undertaken a comprehensive review of current fisheries policies and instructed the urgent commencement of new fisheries development and thus fisheries sector growth. Again, he was given the information to do this. 

In June 2024, we actually provided some crib notes for quick wins he could have achieved - See here.

South Africa has never had an "expert" appointed as Minister responsible for fisheries. Hardly unexpected.  My old friend, Svein Munkejord, was appointed as fisheries minister for Norway many decades ago having been a professional fisheries man before that and subsequently continued to advise South Africa and the United Nations on fisheries until the mid-2000's. And Iceland is reknowned for regularly appointing industry leaders to serve as fisheries minister. 

When Valli Moosa was appointed fisheries and environment minister back in June 1999, he inherited a department fraught with corruption and incompetent leadership - as did almost all subsequent ANC Ministers such as Joemat-Petterssen, Zokwana and then Creecy and now George! [The inheritance of corruption and incompetence is of course a hallmark of ANC ministerial leadership].

The key difference was that Moosa immediately appointed a group of experts to advise him independently of the inherited bureacracy despite the fact that Moosa's predecessor was an ANC colleague. Similarly, Zokwana was able to fix the failed FRAP 2013 he inherited from Joemat-Petterssen only because he appointed a group of independent experts. 

Sadly for George, he has elected to be led by the nose down the garden path of ongoing fisheries failure and mismanagement by the same people that ran fisheries into the ground under Creecy. The DA is doing itself significant harm in Western Cape fishing communities by perpetuating ANC policy, corruption and mismanagement as it directly hurts local fishers. 

What is Dion George Doing with Abalone? Deliberately Destroying any DA GOODWILL Through Gross Incompetence?

On 28 January 2025, Dion George's fisheries department issued a decision to refuse to grant abalone fishing exemptions to 179 historic divers because they had apparently committed multiple serious violations of the MLRA. 

Additionally, 83 exemption holders were found to have committed "minor" violations of the MLRA and were instructed to pay "admission of guilt fines" or not have their fishing permits issued. And they were told (dishinonestly) by fisheries staff that the payment of admission of guilt fines would not reflect on their criminal records and these fines "have nothing to do with prosecutors and magistrates"! These are obvious lies that unlawfully coerced many exemption holders to admit to crimes they never committed in order to desperately secure access to their fishing permits so as to earn a living. 

The decision of 28 January 2025 was apparently the consequence of a 6-month long investigation into compliance conduct by abalone exemption holders. The investigations - we are told - were completed in December 2024 where these hundreds of violations were "found" to have been committed by these 262 exemption holders. [It is worth noting that there are no more than 290 exemption holders in the entire fishery, which means that according to the department, 90% of divers committed violations of the MLRA].

This in itself ought to have caused any Minister and his senior fisheries staff to pause and double-check the "findings" of their supposed investigations! A 90% violation rate for any fishery is simply not even comprehensible! But not for the geniuses running the fisheries department. They proceeded to refuse to issue fishing permits to 179 exemption holders and then sought to blackmail the additional 83 exemption holders into paying fines. 

Problem 1: A significant number of those accused of "minor" violations - the 83 - refused to pay admission of guilt fines and instead challenged the fines which have since been withdrawn because the department made repeated and basic errors in their "investigations". For example, exemption holders were accused of landing fish against permits that dont even exist and because their vessels failed to report their positions despite the fact that it is widely known that the Department's Vessel Monitoring System is outdated and barely functional and the reporting problem lies with the department. 

Problem 2: Lying to exemption holders about the consequences of paying an admission of guilt fine in order to coerce them into paying fines is egregious and shameful. Paying an admission of guilt fine means that the contravention is recorded as a criminal offence and can affect ones ability to apply for VISA's, jobs, future fishing permits etc. 

Problem 3: The department has failed to inform any one of the 179 exemption holders accused of the supposed multiple and serious violations of the MLRA and what these charges are but has already found them each guilty by refusing them their fishing permits. It's been 4 months since the department says their obviously flawed investigations were completed and yet they have failed to even notifty a single exemption holder of these "serious" charges. The violations of due process, the provisions of the MLRA and the exemption holders' Constitutional rights to fair, just and lawful adminsitrative action is of great concern. 

The conduct to which these exemption holders have been subjected to by the Fisheries Department is entirely expected from a corrupt and inept ANC administration. Such conduct was the hallmark of the FRAP 2022 for example, which resulted in more than 120 successful review applications against the Fisheries Minister. 

But what on earth is Dion Geroge and the DA doing by simply repeating the failures of the ANC administration? The DA is effectively causing signifcant harm to fishing communities in the Western Cape with this type of heavy-handed, unlawful ANC-style mafia conduct.