Fishermen lose out to the office on lobsters
● What do a labour broker, an events manager and an unknown company from Boksburg have in common? They all have lucrative quotas to catch West Coast rock lobster.
And while the government dishes out rights to landlocked office workers, veteran fishermen are literally dying to get their hands on “red gold”.
The body of a veteran skipper washed up this week near Pearly Beach, in the Overberg region of the Western Cape, after he was killed during a high-speed chase with fisheries officials last weekend. Two other people are still missing, presumed dead.
The incident has fuelled anger over the latest fishing rights. Coastal communities say they have been overlooked in favour of big business or the politically connected.
Provisional rock lobster rights are the latest in a series of controversial allocations over several years.
Three “new entrant” rock lobster rights holders are labour broker Solly Tshiki, events manager Nazette Bost and a Boksburg company, Doringbaaier. Tshiki had a multimillion-rand commercial falling out with the Kelly Group several years ago. Bost runs a management services consultancy in Cape
Town.
Fishing rights activists question allocating commercial rights to non-fishermen.
Last year scientists recommended a
66% reduction in the lobster catch. They were ignored by the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries. The department insists the new entrants are part of transformation, but legal experts said this week that some new entrants were more empowered than unsuccessful applicants.
Fishing rights activists are demanding that coastal communities, where many routinely risk their lives as poachers, be allocated the rights given to “paper quota holders” — people who do not actively fish.
“There is systemic failure of the worst kind in the fishing industry when it comes to any rights allocation processes,” said Pedro Garcia of lobby group South African United Fishing Front. “We fully support a full review of all quota allocations across all sectors.”
Tshiki could not be reached for comment on his lack of fishing experience, but his lawyer, John Futter, said: “How is any new entrant supposed to get into the game? He was on the reserve list and the department asked for additional documents, which he supplied. He then got his right.”
Futter said some fishermen lost their rights because of non-usage, and these then became available to newcomers.
“There are a lot of bitter people out there, some of whom, quite frankly, were bone idle and who just assumed they would get their rights back.”
Bost confirmed that she had received a right but declined to comment further. On her company website she lists extensive experience as an events and project manager but does not mention fishing.
Doringbaaier could not be reached for comment.
Hermanus fisherman Vernon Abrahams said fishermen had not only been excluded but were now under attack. “Why do they do this to us? We have families too. The government doesn’t want to give us quotas but they give quotas to people working on dry land?”