Now the applications have been completed, officials are faced with the tough task of allocating fishing rights
Barry Streek
The first phase of one of South Africa’s biggest empowerment deals the allocation of new fishing quotas was completed this week.
Between 6 000 and 9 000 applications were expected for the 1 000 to 1 200 quotas, the first of which, for South Coast lobster, are to be announced within weeks for the new season, which opens on October 1.
Since the end of July Marine Coastal Management officials have been operating 23 offices to help applicants fill in a 40-page form, in which questions are asked about transformation in fishing companies and communities.
Guidelines attached to the application form specifically state: “Recognising the impoverished state of many fishing communities, it is the intention to introduce levy concessions in order to assist the development of remote fishing communities.”
The head of Marine Coastal Management, Horst Kleinschmidt, who is a Deputy Director General in the Department of Envirnomental Affairs and Tourism, says: “I have the right, as the minister’s delegate, to allocate 25% of the total allowable catch of every species to previously disadvantaged fishers.”
When he launched the new quota system Minister of Environmental Affairs and Tourism Mohammed Valli Moosa said his department supported the establishment of micro, small and medium enterprises that were closely linked to transformation.
So the R23-million quota-allocation process, based on the principle that the users pay for the system, is aimed at promoting transformation in the fishing industry, which is worth R2,5-billion a year in landed fish.
Apart from abalone (perlemoen), the rights in the other 21 sectors of the industry will be allocated for four years and for 15 years for fish-processing plants.
Application forms for the commercial quotas in each sector had to be accompanied by a non-refundable R6 000 fee, instead of the current R100. But micro enterprises will pay R500 a year and subsistence fishers will no longer have to apply for quotas.
To eliminate any suggestion of corruption or favouritism, a verification unit, administered by accountants from Deloittes and Sithole ABT, is handling all application forms, which are secured in a strongroom.
These are then fed into a highly sophisticated computer system through a scanner at 160 pages a minute and the application forms are analysed in seven minutes.
As Kleinschmidt explained: “It gives 200 configurations in a hier-archy of what is important and what is less important.”
Then, with Kleinschmidt in charge of the 12 commercial sectors and his deputy, Monde Mayekiso, overseeing the 10 subsistence sectors, 18 lawyers and accountants, in teams of two, will assist in deciding who will get the quotas.
These decisions, which in the final instance have to be made by Kleinschmidt who has been delegated this task by Moosa in terms of the Marine Living Resources Act, will be based on copies of the application forms, computer information, assessments by the team of lawyers and accountants, and input from scientists and fisheries officers.
For the aggrieved, Tip-Offs Anonymous, a unit run by Deloittes, has been hired to hear complaints.
“If people don’t like what we have come up with and they think you have obviously made an error, you have been hoodwinked, you have been told a lie, Tip-Offs Anonymous can undo the whole thing,” says Kleinschmidt.
This process of deliberate transparency has been welcomed.
The African National Congress’s Western Cape representative on economic affairs, Garth Strachan, said his party had established an infrastructure to ensure that existing operators and new fishing companies run by the previously disadvantaged were assisted in completing the necessary applications for quotas.
“We are confident that the detail required in the form is a necessary evil which will help to separate genuine existing and new entrants from speculators and ‘rent-a-black’ operators,” Strachan said.
The Democratic Alliance’s Antoinette Versfeld said she was “very happy” with the government’s approach but added that “the proof of the pudding is in the eating of it because we still have to see what criteria are going to be followed and what the 200 questions are that the computer has to sort out”.
She felt the use of the computer was “fantastic” and said the new system was “an absolute improvement on the past, although it is very expensive”.
Tony de Silva, former managing director of Premier Fishing, said: “I admire how they are going about it.”
Anton Roelofse, area manager of Business Partners, said the process was difficult but “I believe Horst and the boys are doing the right thing. I think they are doing an excellent job.”
Versfeld has called for snoek to be excluded from the quota system. She was later backed by Strachan, who said the ANC would be making representations to Moosa to argue the case for snoek and “hotnotvis” not to be included in traditional line-fishing quotas.
Apart from that relatively minor criticism, there seems to be widespread support for the new system.
However, with up to 9 000 people, communities and companies applying for up to 1 200 quotas, there will, as Kleinschmidt says, be “one vast amount of disappointed people”.
A new era for South African fishing has dawned, as will be evident when the new quotas are awarded over the next three months.