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Ten days ago, Barbara Creecy's delegated authority in the hake long line fishery suddenly and quietly decided to add 3 more Category A applicants to the rights register. To this day, she has failed to announce this decision publicly to any of the hake long line right applicants or the hake long line fishing industry.  Burt why this obviously unlawful and unaccountable conduct? Well, firstly because the hake long line fishing industry, like many other industry bodies, are just too weak to demand accountability for their members. Secondly, these industry bodies are more concerned about placating an increasingly incompetent and unaccountable minister as opposed to protecting member interests.  As a consequence, historic members who were unlawfully denied their rights will be left to urgently protect their own interests.  To date, Feike, has been demanding ministerial and departmental accountability through the courts. And the consequence is that our clients have been able to...

The most recent - the THIRD - deadline for the filing of FRAP appeals on 29 July 2022 will certainly have to be extended again because Creecy continues to fail in her most basic obligations to ensure a fair and proper appeals process.  Key to ensuring compliance with her Constitutional and PAJA obligations as the appellate authority, is ensuring that appellants and access to competitor applications to determine whether their applications have been properly assessed AND that appellants can actually appeal the decisions of her delegated authorities.  Where are the Competitor Applications? In her last statement announcing the extension by 60 days of the last appeals process, Creecy importantly admitted that neither she nor her team foresaw having to make these applications available (!!!) and therefore required individual applicant consents to share their individual applicant data on line.  The admission is damning. It's an admission that the Department and their minister ha...

 On 27 May 2022, the Department and Minister of Fisheries issued an email requesting applicants to either object or consent to the making public of their personal and commercial information recorded in their respective applications.  The question we keep getting is "HOW DO WE RESPOND?" Here is our advice. Respond to the Minister as follows: You must object in totality to the making public of any of your corporation / personal data for the reasons below.  Fill out the form they require and in Part C insert the following:  The Minister of Fisheries Barbara Creecy I refer to your department’s email below of 27 May 2022 pertaining to the issuance of personal information recorded in my corporation’s application(s) (APP NUMBER / S).  I OBJECT TO THE ISSUANCE AND MAKING PUBLIC OF THIS DATA IN ITS ENTIRETY FOR THE REASONS STATED BELOW: 1. Your proposal is to make this data public in either EXCEL format or some other format on the internet via your department’s FRAP ON...

And so the inevitable has happened ... again. Barbara Creecy, the Fisheries Minister, has now extended the deadline to submit FRAP Appeals by 60 days to 29 July 2022. In reality, these appeals will never be decided. This is why. The funny thing is that the Minister's spokesperson complained to a journalist that it is being made out that the department and its Minister do not know what they doing!  As someone who has run multiple successful fishing rights processes and fixed no less than 2 SA FRAP failures, TRUST ME, YOU LOT DONT HAVE A COOKING CLUE! This is why you literally cant keep to single deadline you set for yourselves!  And Creecy and her team admit to this in their latest communication about having to make applications available. They say -  "However, on the new online platform, applications are not available as they used to be since the electronic system was not designed to allow applicants access to the applications of other applicants. In ...

On 28 February 2022, the Department of Fisheries issued nine general published "reasons", purportedly setting out the reasons and bases of the decisions in each of the 9 fishing sectors. Every fishing rights allocation process since 2001 has seen the publication of general published reasons. These general published reasons are of course necessary in a constitutional democracy premised on the principles of accountable, justifiable, reasonable and transparent governance.  One need only take a rudimentary glance at the GPR's published in 2005 and again in 2016 (pursuant to FRAP 2015) to appreciate that these documents set out in substantial and unambiguous detail the exact processes adopted to evaluate, score and weight each criterion and then how each successful applicant is allocated a proportion of the total allowable catch and/or total applied effort.  The fundamental purpose of the GPR is to explain to each applicant how the decision pertaining to its application was ma...

Due to the intensity of the fishing rights allocation process last year and early in January, we largely kept clients and the broader industry updated on FRAP developments via our TWITTER HANDLE.  However, a BLOG article providing some initial analysis of the FRAP 2022 decisions is now necessary.  Firstly, the decisions were clearly aimed at placating the majority of the industry. The decisions in hake trawl, small pelagics and south coast rock lobster were the exact opposite of the Minister's threats in 2021 to introduce new entrants and "transform" the industry. Remember her (empty) threats about breaking up monopolies etc? All hot air of course. Given the significant process and legal failures of FRAP, the decisions to maintain the status quo as far as possible are understandable. Not to mention that in capital intensive, transformed sectors like hake deep-sea trawl, small pelagics and South Coast rock lobster, the introduction of large numbers of new entrants would ha...

 I have worked through the entire government gazette issued on 20 September 2021 containing 9 draft sector policies and the draft transfer of rights fishing policy.  Should you require detailed advice and analysis on specific policies, you are welcome to contact me. It is simply not possible to draft a blog article setting out that level of analysis and detail.  The overwhelming conclusion having read these draft policies is that they are the product of incorrigible poor intellect and knowledge of our fisheries sectors, economies and communities. None of these policies will withstand any half-decent judicial review. Like the Draft General Policy 2021, these draft policies are crap. The construction of entire paragraphs is nonsensical and an awful abuse of the English language.  Bad policy that will destroy value chains, jobs, investments and entire fisheries economies are prevalent.  How can you create policy that will exclude an entire vessel fleet in an entire...