Costs of rotten confiscated crayfish soar

THE costs of trying to sell Wild Coast crayfish legally at a Port St Johns restaurant are mounting after 272 were seized by the state and later allegedly returned rotten when the owner resorted to high court action.

Waterfront restaurant owner Peter Woodford yesterday said he had clocked up more than R40 000 in costs since purchasing the crayfish from an exporter.

The extra costs were for legal fees to get them back as well as buying new freezers in the “emergency” created when officials seized his freezers during a raid in December.

Although some of the returned crayfish were taken by health officials to test whether they had gone rotten after they were seized, Woodford said he was also going to run up more costs, as he planned to use a courier service to fly some of the crayfish to Johannesburg this week to be tested independently by the SA Bureau of Standards.

But Woodford said the costs were a lot higher than the R40 000.

He had still not quantified and factored in the potential loss of turnover, advertising expenses, unlawful arrest, harm to his restaurant’s reputation and the public humiliation he had experienced.

“Due to lower income during the season, the restaurant cannot sustain the eight people originally employed per shift, and we are now down to six.”

Woodford said the legal fees he had to pay to get the crayfish back were more than the R17 000 he had paid to buy them.

“Going the legal route was the only way I could get the department [of fisheries] to move on the issue as they did not want to return them or press charges against me.”

He said it was not good for tourism on the Wild Coast when restaurant owners like himself were not able to sell crayfish they had bought legally from local subsistence fishermen through Live Fish Tanks, which exports most of their product.

Eastern Cape Department of Environmental Affairs spokesman Tobile Gowa said yesterday the problem was something that had to be solved by national fisheries officials.

“I can, however, state that we are part of a national effort to unlock the potential of 800km of [Eastern Cape] coastline,” Gowa said.

“Areas of focus for us include marine transport, shipping, oil and gas, fisheries and aquaculture.”