Creecy's South Coast Rock Lobster QAM is Set Aside by Court

 On 19 August 2026, the Western Cape High Court finally ruled in Risar Fishing CC v The Minister of Forestry, Fisheries & Agriculture & Others that the quantum allocation methodology adopted by Creecy was irrational and arbitrary and thus set it aside. 

This effectively meant that nearly every single decision taken by Creecy during the FRAP 2021/2022 has been reviewed and set aside. The financial costs to the department must be staggering as every decision has been aside with costs awarded against the Minister. We would estimate no less than 40 individual reviews have been successfully brought by various fishing companies resulting in the setting aside of hundreds of decisions in the squid, small pelagics, hake, South Coast rock lobster and tuna pole sectors.  

And despite repeatedly telling numerous courts how Creecy (and then subsequently Dion George) relied exclusively on the advice of the same core team of departmental legal advisors, none of these advisors have been fired and continue to render the same unlawful advice over and over. 

Take the most egregious trio of cases. In the 2016 FRAP, the Minister admitted that every single decision in the hake inshore trawl fishing sector was unlawful because the legal interpretation of what constituted a "suitable vessel" for that fishery was inconsistent and mostly wrong and thus required all decisions to be set aside by the High Court. In 2024, the same interpretational error resulted in more than 80 squid decisions being reviewed and set aside. And we presently face another admission by the Fisheries Minister that more 500 decision in the small pelagic fishing sector need to be reviewed and set aside because of unlawful decision-making in the anchovy and sardine sectors. 

These are repeat cases of unaccountable and reckless unlawful decision-making concerning a critical natural resource. The damage to the fishing industry is substantial. Not only does it result in haphazard and unreliable decision-making, it increasingly means that for small and medium-sized fishing businesses, access to finance and investment |(And thus growth) becomes impossible as no lender or investor wants to risk capital when a 15 year right granted actually means nothing because it will very likely be subjected to review applications.  

The question is, can DAVID MAYNIER do today what Valli Moosa did 26 years ago and fix fisheries? 

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