LÜDERITZ – Novanam Fishing Factory that has a hake fish quota has closed down for one month to allow fish to recover without disruption.
At least 1 400 workers are employed by the hake sector at Lüderitz alone.
Manu Namukomba – the Production Manager at Novanam LTD, said this is something implemented by the Ministry of Fisheries and Marine Resources since 2006 and it is only applicable to quota right holders of hake.
Right holders of other species such as monk are not affected by the October shut down; the purpose for this shut down is to allow breeding period for the hake population and to allow the hake stocks to recover without any disruption.
The shutdown at Novanam started as from October 06, 2014 and will last until until November 04, 2014 and production will resume in full swing on November 05, 2014.
“The entire workforce in the production will go on shut down in order to allow the engineering department to do maintenance, since that is the appropriate time to do so,” he said.
Other factories that have closed down for October are Seaflower and Marco Fishing.