Mail & Guardian reporter
March 1993 signaled the end of an arduous struggle for the shareholders of New South Africa Fishing Enterprises (NSAFE) who were finally granted a hake quota of 1 000 tonnes after 26 years of unsuccessful applications.
The company is headed by Pedro Williams and his life and business partner, Diana Williams. Williams had applied for quotas annually since 1966, but these applications were consistently denied.
After 20 years of total exclusion, the stirrings of change finally appeared in 1991 when Graham Louw, a representative of a Portuguese trawler group operating in South Africa, approached the Williamses.
He informed the couple that foreigners were about to lose their quotas and encouraged them to reapply; this led to their 1993 application which resulted in the granting of 1000 tonnes of deep-sea trawl hake to NSAFE.
Two years after the granting of the first quota a lack of funds and infrastructure as well as the criteria for granting of quotas resulted in NSAFE embarking on a joint venture with Nico Bacon’s Viking Fishing, the only company prepared to join and assist a black quota holder and allow active participation. The wholly black-owned New South Africa Fishing Company (Pty) Ltd (NSAFC) was formed in 1995.
The quota was granted on the basis that the shareholders were regarded as “new entrants” to the industry, even though some were descendants of the first fishing communities in Cape Town’s Kalk Bay, boasting an extensive history in the fishing industry.
Pedro Williams comes from a highly respected fishing dynasty that has made a significant contribution to the history of the industry. They formed part of Kalk Bay’s original fishing community dating back to 1839, when two Philippino sailors deserted a Spanish sailing ship in Simonstown.
Williams ensured that his family’s generations of fisherfolk remained unbroken when he too became a skipper at age 18. He was on board the Omaruru when his uncle Cyril Hernandez, the “pilchard king”, landed the first pilchard catch to the Ovenstone factory in Walvis Bay.
He was sent to Chile in 1961 by the Ovenstone joint venture to skipper an anchovy seiner in Iquique. Of the 10-member crew, everyone including the cook became a skipper.
Williams has trained many South African skippers, sailing a range of foreign and local seas. Today Williams participates in a number of projects including training, and also sits on various committees in the industry.
A key element of the company’s success is the way it challenged the industry’s notorious disregard of women as management. Diana Williams has been involved in running the business since 1972, while the couple’s daughter, Mandy Gordon-Sedin, is its operations director, a traditionally male role.
The formidable wife and mother-daughter team are not only transforming power imbalances in the fishing industry in terms of gender roles, they also have succeeded in adopting a compassionate approach in a tough and unloving environment that often creates hardship for the women and children of crewmen on shore.
This approach, combined with years of fishing skill, is what they believe will ensure the success and contribution of NSAFC. Armed with a strong sense of fairness and compassion for the lesser privileged, Diana Williams’s approach to managing the business was one which ensured that the company cares for its most valued asset: a happy crew and staff.
The company pays the school fees and for the purchase of school clothing for its entire staff. NSAFC also provides staff with home loans.
Building change from within has been Diana Williams’s motto. Confident about what constitutes a well-managed industry, Diana Williams has been promoting the training of fishing people long before the transformation requirements of the government.
She has persistently encouraged cooperative ventures in order to build competencies and match skills in all the areas that ensure a successful business
Gordon-Sedin has faced the same challenges that her mother had to contend with. However, she has finally been accepted on previously all-male territory and is regularly seen in the bowels of the company’s 50m-freezer factory trawler.
Gordon-Sedin believes a proactive approach that is service-orientated and developing industry workers is needed. Mother and daughter believe that women in the industry can most ably facilitate this change.
When pushed on their legendary charity and social commitment work Diana Williams refused to budge and preferred to see this as a private matter. “What we do, we do well this will decide whether we gain new quotas. Our track record and forward planning ensures our success,” she said.