It was announced late last week that Sue Middleton - the DDG for SA Fisheries - will retire effective 1 December 2025.
And, as is traditional in South Africa when a public official retires or dies, the person is eulogized regardless of any reality. Facts are shelved and mythology is born!
FISHSA put out a bootlicking statement listing her "achievements". The farce is that none of the members of FISHSA actually believe the nonsense because they tell me that over coffee and in the corridors!
Consider this public statement issued on behalf of Minister Dion George by his current chief of staff. This is the current Fisheries Minister's opinion of Middleton and her leadership of the fisheries department. Some paragraphs are worth quoting:
"Fishing rights allocations and fisheries management under previous ANC ministers have been a constant source of strife and suffering for coastal communities...
Many of the commercial rights allocations (and non-allocations) in the previous parliament have been challenged successfully in court at great expense and embarrassment to the Department, exposing the mismanagement and poor administration...
Fisheries management in South Africa has been generally poor, with corruption endemic among officials and compliance and enforcement previously lacking...Many of our most important fish stocks are in serious decline with some at alarmingly low levels already.
Poaching continues to be a huge problem with local and international criminal syndicates plundering sensitive species such as West Coast rock lobster and abalone..."
Ms Middleton has either been a part of, chaired, or led every fisheries rights allocation process since 2013. And every one has been a tragic failure.
The 2013 allocation process was mired in corruption, requiring an ANC Minister to intervene and effectively re-do every allocation process and abandon the allocation of fishing rights in the abalone, oyster and mussel sectors. The Public Protector produced this report, which concluded as follows:
"6.2. The evidence received during the investigation indicates that, following widespread allegations of irregularities, manipulation, unlawful or arbitrary decision-making and unprocedural conduct in connection with the FRAP 2013 process, which was followed by a urgent application launched by the Traditional Line Fishers Association before the High Court seeking a relief to set aside the allocation of fishing rights in the Traditional Line Fish Sector, the former Minister commissioned Harris Nupen Molebatsi Attorneys to conduct an independent audit with a view to determine whether proper processes were followed in the allocation of fishing licences and rights by the DAFF.
6.3 The evidence further indicates that, upon his appointment as the Minister of Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Mr Senzeni Zokwana appointed Emang Basadi Legal and Forensics (Pty) Ltd to review and assess the DAFF’s capacity to work and process the FRAP during 2015/2016, with a view to prevent the recurrence of the shortcomings of FRAP 2013, identified by Harris Nupen Molebatsi Attorneys.
6.4 Additionally, the evidence received during the investigation indicates that the South African Police Service’s Directorate for Priority Crimes Investigation has since investigated two (2) corruption cases against Mr Desmond Stevens, the senior Fisheries official who was directly involved in the 2013 FRAP rollout."
Despite the widespread documented evidence of corruption against Stevens and other officials, none were ever prosecuted or even dismissed.
The 2016 allocation process, which Middleton chaired, was so unlawful that every significant decision taken in the hake inshore trawl and horse mackerel fishing sectors was reviewed and set aside repeatedly, even requiring the unprecedented step of Minister Creecy having to "self-review" her own hake inshore trawl decisions last year because they were so patently unlawful. Litigation in the horse mackerel fishing sector continues to this day - 8 years after fishing rights were first allocated.
The 2022 fishing rights allocation process remains another legacy of failure for Middleton. Over 120 individual fishing rights allocation decisions have been reviewed and set aside - a record in the history of fisheries (MIS)management. No previous fishing rights allocation process has had such a record of judicial review. Simply Google "Frap 2022, Failure" and the internet will tell you how bad it's been. But here are just two quick links. Here and Here. It was in fact so bad, Carte Blanche intervened - see Cart Blanche here.
The administration of the fisheries branch itself is an embarrassing mess. Fishing permit application processes remain stuck in the early 2000's requiring email or hard copy applications. Corruption remains endemic. Fisheries compliance is an absolute failure. The department cannot even conduct its own trawl and pelagic surveys as vessels are broken or there are no funds to pay for the research. In the abalone fishing sector, where we lose 4,000 tons to poaching which, itself funds the massive gang-led drug trade in the Western Cape (And associated Cape Flats gun violence), the department has not conducted a single biological survey since 2018 and its staff remain heavily implicated in corruption linked to confiscated abalone.
Not a single one of the (brief) targets set out in the NDP have been achieved. The commercial fisheries economy is stagnant at best. In 2004, there were 22 viable and productive fishing sectors with funded plans to open a total of 12 additional fisheries over 4 years. Today, that number has collapsed to 12 or 13 at best and not a single new or additional commercial fishery has been opened since 2004. Instead, 1000's of "small-scale" fishers have been added to the fishery. They are nothing more than a tax to the actual commercial fisheries because these small-scale co-operatives have been an unmitigated failure, only seeking rents from existing operators to fund the purchase of fancy cars and clothes.
It certainly would be more helpful for the future of fisheries management if FISH SA provided an honest assessment of the state of fisheries instead of bootlicking.
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