Concerned about the allocation of fishing rights

CONCERNED APPLICANT ­WRITES:

I am really irked by the Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources, Hon. Bernard Esau's lose and hiding explanations about the selection of rights holders for the about 120 fishing rights.

I would say, it was very good from the Government to bring in some transparency in the advertising of the fishing rights that have expired. The Government's approach that they have introduced the fishing rights and quota system to empower Namibians by giving them licences to harvest fish from the Atlantic Ocean was commendable, although the scheme is being abused by some right holders.

Some of the right holders came into the system by using the names of some traditional communities, poor individuals and churches. Thereafter they were thrown out without benefiting anything at all. The terms and conditions of registration were changed before they could start claiming something.

There are six (6) selection criterion for the allocation of fishing rights and during January 2019, the Hon. Minister announced that they only need an additional extra 3 months to finalized the exercise.

Almost after every two or three months you hear confusing, conflicting explanations and answers without any certainty. The Minister has showed us on Sunday, 5th May 2019 that he has no explicit answers for us as to when the final announcements will be made.

All these things make us to believe media speculations that they are busy politicking with the allocation of the fishing rights by trying to award the quotas to the majority of the old right holders, to accommodate companies which benefited during the last seven years and to the more established companies which have benefited from the fishing rights over the past 20 years.

I am convinced the new transparency measures were proposed to accommodate more newcomers, to bring in fairness and to level the playing field. On the closing date of the applications for the fishing rights there were talks of over 25 000 applications that were received by the 31st August 2018, but the next week the figure came down to 5 196 applications. What happened to the other 20 000 all of a sudden?

I am telling you that this is just a cheap politicking with those fishing rights, but I have a different view regarding the whole process.

I would have given fishing rights to a certain number of newcomers, especially the landlocked regions to encourage them to vote for the ruling party, which has empowered them. The moment it is being done the other way around, people will simply not vote for you.

The Minister must come clean and clear his name from allegations that he is apparently dishing out fishing rights to his associates etc. So, there will be no fairness in the allocation of these fishing rights, only the old wealthy giants will come back, if not the well-connected elites and comrades. That is the outcome that I predict. You must tell me a different story, if the outcome is something else.