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.