PORT ELIZABETH, April 15 (ANA) – The agriculture, forestry, and fisheries (DAFF) department and the rural development and agrarian reform (DRDAR) department have committed to providing training for divers and fishermen in Port Elizabeth.
The training would provide divers and fishermen with “support to benefit from marine resources endowing the provincial coast” and was part of Operation Phakisa, the departments said in a joint statement on Friday.
This followed a meeting between Agriculture, Forestry, and Fisheries Minister Senzeni Zokwana, DRDAR MEC Mlibo Qoboshiyane, ANC provincial secretary Lubabalo Mabuyane, and Cedric Frolif of the Eastern Cape Divers’ Forum.
Zokwana said he was committed to expanding functions and decentralising services to the fishing industry.
He also promised to have ongoing engagements with the representatives of all recognised fishing forums in the four coastal provinces.
Eastern Cape fishermen have been complaining that fishing in the Port Elizabeth area is dominated by Western Cape entities fishing in the area and taking the catch away from the province, robbing the province of jobs and economic spin-offs.
“Skills for emerging fishers and divers are important for development so that we don’t criminalise and delegitimise the existence of our own divers and fishermen,” Qoboshiyane said.
He intended to co-ordinate the work and work with all stakeholders to ensure that the new appointees were part of the strategic programmes to address the problems raised.
Zokwana said companies operating in economically depressed coastal areas would be incentivised and monitored closely to ensure catching, processing, and marketing was done by locals in the coastal provinces to create jobs and business opportunities.
More would be done to ensure that black fishermen also benefited, as “the meeting was reflective of how black people have been denied the right to participate in the fishing industry and the skewed allocation of experimental fishing rights”.
– African News Agency (ANA)
