Imposing national demographics for fishing-rights allocations will result in job losses 

18 August 2015

The DA has written to the minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries, Senzeni Zokwana, to request that he seriously reconsider the application of racial quotas in the allocation of fishing quotas in coastal communities.

The department recently embarked on a series of nation-wide discussions to discuss the allocation of fishing rights with stakeholders in the small-scale fisheries industry. During these discussions, it was suggested that racial quotas could be implemented to transform the sector.

Such a policy suggestion - that national demographics be applied when considering the allocation of these quotas - is ill-thought and will devastate fishing communities, resulting in job losses. 

Given the demographics of the Western Cape and Northern Cape, applying these demographics will mean thousands of fishermen would lose their main source of income.

This issue has already caused tensions in communities – and the DA has received numerous calls and complaints about it. Protest marches are also being planned at coastal communities across the country, one such example is in Mamre, on the West Coast in the Western Cape.

If the Government and the department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries are to avoid the failures of the Fishing Rights Allocation Process (FRAP) 2013 process, whereby the department left thousands of previous fishing licence holders unemployed and without the ability to provide for their families, they must allocate small-scale fishing rights to fishers who live adjacent to the waters they intend fishing.

The DA will ensure that this matter is taken up with the Minister, so that fishing communities are not devastated by the ill-thought out, Verwoerdian politics of the ANC.

Statement issued by Zelda Jongbloed MP, DA Shadow Deputy Minister of Agriculture, Forestry & Fisheries, August 18 2015