New Era journalist Lorraine Kazondovi had an in-depth interview with the Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources, Bernard Esau, to give clarity on the issue of fisheries management and the granting and allocation of fishing rights, quotas and licences to deserving Namibian citizens and these are excerpts of the interview with the Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources.
NE: Honourable Minister, could you kindly explain how the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources grants fishing rights, quotas and licences?
BE: “That specific process starts with an invitation to the public when it comes to rights. We publicize this through government gazettes, by inviting people to apply within the space of one month. We ask them to apply for rights and we specify which species are we opening up for people to apply rights for. We embarked on such an exercise in the past two years and quite a number of people applied for new rights. These applications are taken up through a committee which we have put together consisting of people from the ministry as well as people with relevant information on fishing from the industry as well as lawyers who know the laws of our country. They scrutinize and check the applications to see whether they meet the criteria and if so, it is recommended to me as a minister and I take it further from here to cabinet. Quotas is different, because if you have a right we will give you quotas based on the total allowable catch (TAC’s) and then we allocate the tonnages of fish that you can catch on a seasonal basis, because the seasons differ from species to species. The licenses are given to vessels. You must first have a right to have a quota, and then you apply for a licence for the fish to be caught. That is administrative. We will check whether that vessel was maybe listed as a vessel that was involved in illegal fishing activities in the world and if it is cleared, then the licence is issued. It is normally done by the minister, but I have delegated this responsibility to my permanent secretary.”
NE: What criteria does the ministry use when choosing the successful individuals/consortiums/companies to grant such rights/quotas and fishing licences?
BE: “We normally give rights to Namibians, it will be very exceptional that a foreign company is granted a right. I have given 99.99 percent rights to Namibian companies. I also look at the formally disadvantaged groups and the other issue I look at is what you can contribute towards our developmental programmes in terms of job creation, what can you do in terms of poverty alleviation and social problems we have. What can you do in terms of our industrialization policy, because we believe that if you have a strong sector or industry, that sector must also help us in propelling industrialization. So when you do procurement, you need to procure here in Namibia if the things are available. The first preference must be given to Namibian companies. You need to look at other issues like women who have not been party to this and you need to look at communities. Those were the criteria, it is not prescribed per se, but at least I am using my experience and the exposure I had on how we want to change our economic structure and address the inequalities in our economy. That is also what our government wants to see.”
NE: How are the successful companies expected to operate during the period of the fishing rights? How does the ministry monitor the performance of fishing right holders, in the period of the rights?
BE: “The expectation is that we want to see that companies operate within the framework of our laws. You have a right, but you should also have obligations. You should pay your levies, you should pay your taxes, and you should honour all those fiscal obligations. When it comes to the checks and balances in terms of companies complying, we have a directorate within our ministry, which is responsible for policy planning and economics. They do an evaluation on an annual basis when right holders have to apply for quotas, so they check what their performance was. There is an application form and we check against what they have told us they will do, in terms of their social programmes and outstanding levies to be paid among others. We look into that before we release the quotas to them annually. However the rights are given for a specific time. There are seven-year rights, ten-year, fifteen-year and twenty-year rights. The new players in the industry were given seven-year rights.
“They will also be subjected to a midterm review within two/three years and we will have to do this exercise of looking at whether these companies have met their promises that they made when they applied for the rights. And whether they are also complying with the laws. We look at jobs that they have created, we look at investments they have made, we look at what empowerment they have brought about in terms of spending, procurement and the like. That exercise is done midterm-wise and I have asked my officials to do that now. When we reach year three, at least we will know what to do.”
NE: What happens when the period has lapsed? Do the right holders re-apply and on what basis does the ministry re-issue these rights to them?
BE: “We look at what they have done in terms of development programmes or social programmes which they have promised. We look at whether they have done investments in let’s say in vessels, in factories – value addition, in taking control of the markets because sometimes people are just getting the rights and enter into a catch arrangement with a company, which usually happens in the first year because they do not have vessels. In the second year they still enter into such an arrangement, and the third year and there is no commitment in investing in a vessel. We want to see that they move away from leasing arrangements to ownership to own assets. That is also one of the issues that need to be looked at. Then when we go to factory arrangements, because we want to see that there is value added to our raw material and in the process create jobs. I am also looking at what controls they have in terms of markets. What is happening now is that most of our fish is more Eurocentric, it is moving to Europe. I know Europe is a lucrative market, but we should also look at alternative markets. Look east, look south, look Africa that is what I am looking at.”
NE: What mechanisms are in place to ensure that right holders actually use the quotas to participate in the fishing industry, and that the right holders do not rent or sell the quotas to foreign fishing companies?
BE: “First of all, there is no way that the right can be sold to a given company, whether foreign or local. They can sell the right, but it has to be guided by our Marine Resources Act and it is very clear in the act that any transaction in the right must carry the blessing of the minister. Not the P.S or my deputy, but the minister must be informed of any change of ownership when it comes to a company that has a fishing right. In that context, I do not think that as a minister, I will give my blessings to the sale of a right to a foreign company. I will give my blessings to a transaction whereby our local Namibians are buying foreigners out. I will not allow any sales of Namibian interests to foreign interest.”
NE: In total, how many fishing rights have been granted? Out of these fishing rights holders how many Namibians have direct ownership in the fishing companies and the fishing vessels?
BE: “We did a stock taking exercise and what we have established is that the total rights granted stand at more than 330 rights, old and new. Some right holders have invested in vessels, some have invested in processing facilities and some are also moving towards taking control of the markets. Presently we have 38 factories in the fishing sector, these are owned jointly by the various 330 right holders. Some own, some do not own anything. The factories are owned by Namibian and foreign factories, because Namibia never had the capital to put up factories and buy equipment but for the past 20 years quite a number of Namibians have moved towards owning factories as well. When the exercise of midterm review is over we will know exactly how many of the right holders are having ownership in the factories and how many have ownership in vessels. You cannot do this exercise in year one, you should give them time to exploit the resource and then you see from the income generated from the exploitation exercise, how much went for consumption and how much went for investments.”
NE: Some critics say that rights were allocated only to the politically connected people, and to right holders that have sold their previous rights. What is your response to these critics?
BE: “We have not allocated rights to politically connected people, we took a holistic approach in terms of our populace and where there is a need for people to be empowered. You must have taken note of the fact that, when we did the granting of rights, there were also other political parties like Nudo members who were given rights as well as Swanu members who were given rights and many other people. But we were not looking at political affiliation – that was not the criteria. We were looking at Namibians first and where there is a need for empowerment.”
NE: Are there any success stories that you can share with one of your fishing quota/right holders?
BE: “There are two companies that have rights in the exploitation of horse-mackerel, they have a new company and they have bought vessels, which is a good sign that money did not only go for consumption but also for capital investment. They have also started to add value to horse-mackerel. They have moved from acquisition of assets to investment in processing facilities. They are also moving into the direction of marketing our fish in alternative markets like Senegal and Cameroon. These are new initiatives, because our horse-mackerel in the past were just caught and processed on sea and just exported straight to DRC. We should move our products to various other markets, otherwise we stand to be vulnerable to shocks if something happens to those markets, and that is what we have experienced with hake. Hake is also moving differently now, in the past it was only sent to Spain, now people are taking hake to South Africa, marketing it to Australia and there are a lot of enquiries from the Middle East countries like Dubai and the Emirates as well as enquiries from China. The success story is that we are diversifying our markets. ”
NE: It appears there is a low supply of fresh sea fish in the country. Is the country unable to meet the local demand?
BE: “I know the demand for fish in our domestic market has increased. In the past, that was not happening. I have given a special quota to our Namibia Fish Consumption Promotion Trust, and they have rolled out their programmes by opening up new outlets in the country – in Opuwo, Eenhana, Outapi, Rundu as well as in Windhoek. With the opening of the new outlets, people started to buy fish, because they saw that fish was available at an affordable price and is very nutritious. This has contributed towards an increase in demand for fish. Last month, I decided that from the reserve quota, which was 80 000, 30 percent of that quota must be marketed domestically because of this increase in demand. Only horse-mackerel for now, because that is the most affordable species of fish. It must be discussed from within on how much hake we can market domestically.”
By Lorraine Kazondovi