The state’s Marine Living Resources Fund is R45-million in debt from having R53-million in its coffers by the end of March 2005, the Cape Times reported on Tuesday.
Its website said the fund’s travel and entertainment costs went up from just over R2-million in 2004/05 to R23-million in 2005/06.
This comes after the annual budget for the 2005/06 financial year was reduced to less than the budget of 2002.
The fund is the operational budget of the Department of Environment and Tourism’s Marine and Coastal Management (MCM) and is tasked with managing the country’s multibillion-rand fishing industry.
The problems were highlighted in the newsletter of a company now run by former MCM head Horst Kleinschmidt and former MCM chief director Shaheen Moolla.
Kleinschmidt said it was time for the record to be set straight.
”MCM is making out that they inherited a financial mess we created, that they inherited a fund that was broke. That is simply not true. In 2004/05 we ran MCM and all its vessels on our budget, and we still came out with R53-million in the kitty.”
Money woes facing MCM could affect almost every facet of the fishing industry, from the control of illegal fishing to the country’s international markets.
The shortfall meant that MCM scrapped its annual scientific hake survey in 2005, the first time this survey had not been run since its inception in the 1970s.
The survey formed the basis of MCM’s setting quotas for how much hake can be caught the following year.
The department’s spokesperson, Blessing Manale, told the Mail & Guardian Online on Tuesday that the cost of running the vessels had been underestimated.
He said fuel costs had also increased over the last four years by 192%. – Sapa