Barry Streek
The former managing director of a major fishing company, Tony de Silva, and a Democratic Alliance MP, Antoinette Versfeld, have clocked up more than 7 000km since July 25 to help 16 fishing communities in the Western Cape to form companies to obtain fishing quotas.
Versfeld says they have only worked with communities and have refused to work with any closed corporations and commercial companies to ensure that ordinary people could have access to the quotas.
They went through the whole process with these groups so that they could complete the application forms for the quotas.
This included information on the background to the company or organisation, information on the historic participation of the community in fishing, the motivation for the application and a business plan.
The business plan had to have information on the proposed operations, harvest or boat operation information, a processing or factory agreement, marketing details, distribution plans, a manpower plan including staff benefits, technical aspects and financial forecasts or statements.
This is, clearly, a complex process. But after De Silva briefed two community groups from St Helena Bay and Elandsbaai on the Cape West Coast they seemed to cope with the complexities.
The St Helena Bay group represented 200 shareholders, all subsistence fishing people, while 12 people from the other group represented 157 people who want to call their company Elandsbaai Fisheries Limited.
Cliff Swartz and Charles Jordaan from St Helena Bay, who want to call their company Xantium Trading Limited, said they had already raised the R18 000 necessary to apply for three permits for 30 tonnes of lobster, 100 tonnes of hake, and for a pelagic quota of 10 000 tonnes of anchovy and 2 000 tonnes of pilchards.
All shares in the company would be equal and no one could own more than one share, they explained.
De Silva and Versfeld have addressed numerous community meetings over the past two months to explain the process to the people so that they could have a fair chance of getting the quotas.
De Silva said they believed ordinary people should own these rights but they had to be empowered to manage the process, complete the application forms and acquire the business skills to manage a business, but it was difficult because these communities had never submitted an application form before and there were all sorts of advisers and consultants who were exploiting the situation.
“One has to find an equitable basis so that they can be in charge of their own future. Over the next four years they will have to build up their skills,” he said.
De Silva is particularly strong about the need to protect the interests of ordinary people. He says when Sekanjalo Investments took control of Premier Fishing with Industrial Development Corporation backing they promised the 1 200 workers in the company that they would eventually get 70% of the company but so far not a single share had been transferred to the workers.
“The workers would have been in control of Premier Fishing but this has never materialised,” he said.
De Silva told the Elandsbaai representatives: “If you have a good plan you can make a good go of it.”
The communities he and Versfeld have also been interacting with include women from Doringbaai; 200 people from Ebenezer, Lutzville and Papendoorp; 30 women from Steebergs Cove near St Helena Bay; the 500 members of the The United Fishing Company; 1 400 people from Gansbaai and 75 people from Gansbaai Investments; 200 people from the Struisbaai Visservereeniging; 70 people from Arniston; about 250 people from Hout Bay; 120 people from Kalk Bay; and 30 people from Atlantis.
Versfeld had to call on some of her fellow MPs to help out with the completion of application forms at Vredenburg.
The new quota system is aimed at empowering fishing communities and this unlikely couple have done their bit to make it happen.
Versfeld claims she has been told by the African National Congress that they are not scared of her and would finish her off for breakfast, nor are they scared of De Silva, but the two of them together were “dangerous”.