The Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF), assisted representatives of the West Coast Fishing Community to submit an urgent petition to the National Assembly of South Africa, demanding immediate intervention to protect the rights of fishing and canning workers on the West Coast.
The petition, submitted on behalf of workers and community members from Laaiplek, St Helena Bay, and Velddrif, exposes a disturbing pattern whereby large fishing corporations secure valuable public fishing quotas on the basis of commitments to job creation, local economic development and community upliftment, only to pursue factory consolidations and retrenchments once those rights have been awarded.
At the centre of the petition are the actions of the Oceana Group, through Lucky Star and Amawandle Pelagic, whose recent consolidation of operations has created uncertainty and fear among hundreds of workers who depend on the fishing industry for survival.
The petition details the harrowing conditions faced by workers who served as essential personnel during the COVID-19 pandemic, maintaining the national food supply for as little as R5,000 per month. Despite these sacrifices, the Oceana Group has recently implemented consolidations between the Amawandle and Lucky Star facilities, leading to profound uncertainty and fear of job losses among hundreds of seasonal and contract workers.
Through this petition, the EFF is calling for Parliament to exercise its constitutional oversight mandate to restore integrity to the fishing rights allocation system. The EFF supports the workers’ Prayer and Specific Requests, which include:
• An Urgent Parliamentary Inquiry: Referring the matter to the Portfolio Committee on Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment to investigate the factory consolidations and the basis of quota awards. • Investigation of Quota Compliance: Demanding that the Minister of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment investigate if the Oceana Group has breached its socio-economic undertakings, with the potential for revocation of fishing rights where misrepresentation is found. • Accelerating a review of the Fishing Rights Allocation Process (FRAP) to mandate minimum employment levels and living wages. • Ensuring that the utilization of marine resources advances the goals of social justice and ends the extractive commercial models that prioritize profit over people.
The workers and communities have given much to this industry and to the nation, and are not asking for charity, but for justice. We maintain that public fishing rights are not private property but a public resource held in trust for the benefit of all South Africans. No corporation should be permitted to exploit marine resources, make promises to communities and government, and then abandon workers in pursuit of greater profits. The EFF will continue to use its oversight role in Parliament to ensure that the promise of transformation and upliftment in coastal communities be made real rather than remaining empty rhetoric.
The EFF is committed to gender equality and women’s rights.
Acid Gosling
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