Fishers took to the Arniston Slipway Harbour on Saturday, November 28 to hand over a memorandum to DAFF officials.
Since 2007, fishers from Arniston and other areas on the South and West coasts, have been issued with Interim Relief permits that excluded bona fide fishers. The fishers’ who are part of Coastal Links South Africa were removed without consent and attempts to get them back on the list have fallen on deaf (“daff”) ears.
49 Fishers from Arniston, Struisbaai and Pearly Beach have not been beneficiaries of the flawed Interim Relief (IR) system since IR8 in regards to West Coast Lobster specifically. Some have been removed without their knowledge and others have documents from the Minister stating that they will be beneficiaries but then did not appear on any list of beneficiaries under the IR system. There are a number of non-deserving fishers on the IR list, with no history in the sector.
“It is very difficult for us to understand the state of affairs that is currently prevailing in the Department of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF), and the behaviour of constant lies and a complete disregard of undertakings,” Anthony Engel – Small Scale Fisher from Arniston said in a statement issued by CLSA last week.
The fishers were joined by other CLSA members from Western Cape.
“We arrived at the harbour at about 4am and eventually around 10 DAFF officials spoke to us,” said Christian Adams, CLSA national chairperson.
A memorandum containing a list of grievances was handed to DAFF officials and letter of grievances was sent to DAFF’S DG on Thursday morning.
“The DAFF official at the harbour agreed to give our memorandum to his seniors and we hope that we will get positive feedback,” said Adams.
On Friday Morning Masifundise received a notice of receipt from the department but no reply has been issued regarding the grievances.
CLSA and Masifundise gave DAFF seven days to reply to the letter.
Read the Letter here: https://www.masifundise.org/media-release-rights-of-fishing-communities-violated/