Fishing incidents a cause for alarm

Minister calls for action to promote safety

SOUTH AFRICA: The South African fishing industry has never experienced the incident-free year that it was aiming for since the establishment of the Fishing Vessel Safety Unit and the hosting of the Fishing Safety Indaba by the South African Maritime Safety Authority, but 2024 will stand out as the year that emphasises the need for a more concerted approach to safety within the sector.

Having moved from her position at the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment where she was tasked with overseeing the industry’s fishing rights allocation, Minister Barbara Creecy now finds herself overseeing the fishing industry’s safety and she is concerned.

After the latest incident this month, Minister Creecy instructed SAMSA to conduct urgent safety inspections of all commercial fishing vessels operating in South African waters.

“I must express my concern about the increasing number of incidents involving fishing vessels in our waters.”

“I must express my concern about the increasing number of incidents involving fishing vessels in our waters. This year alone, we have witnessed no fewer than five significant incidents, tragically resulting in the loss of 18 lives. Such incidents are deeply concerning, and it is clear that we must take immediate action to improve the safety of our fishing fleet.” said Minister Creecy.

“As a result, I have instructed SAMSA to conduct safety audit inspections on all fishing vessels operating in South African waters that are in our register, and present a report as soon as possible. Furthermore, SAMSA has also been instructed to develop a fishing vessel safety improvement plan aimed at preventing future incidents and ensuring that vessels operating in our waters meet the highest safety standards. The safety of maritime workers is a matter of national priority,” Creecy added.

The Minister’s directives are reminiscent of those given by the late Dullah Omar during his tenure as the Minister of Transport in the early 2000s. At the time he was also responding to an increasingly alarming incidence of fatalities and casualties within the fishing sector.

SAMSA responded by establishing a fishing vessel safety unit in May 2002 that had a long list of objectives including the hosting safety seminars as well as compiling and distributing an annual statistical analysis of casualties in the industry.

And, for many years the Authority hosted the Fishing Industry Safety Indaba as well as issued an annual Marine Notice in January detailing the previous year’s fishing incidents with information relating to the types of vessels, types of incidents as well as number of fatalities.

The last Fishing Industry Safety Indaba took place in 2020 – going online during the COVID-19 pandemic and the safety statistics have not been issued for a several years now.

In SAMSA’s latest annual report, the neglect of the fishing sector as a sub sector of the maritime industry is identified as a risk and the end of March 2025 has been set as a deadline to resuscitate and capacitate the fishing sub-unit.

And, although the Cape Town Agreement 2012 of the Safety in Fishing Convention has not yet come into force, there is currently no domestic legislation that would give rise to enforcing its requirements.

PHOTO: The casualty fishing vessel, MFV Armana photographed while drifting after it was abandoned by its 20 member crew on discovery of fire on board on Sunday and before it vanished during the early hours of Monday morning in an ocean location some 57 nautical miles south of Gansbaai in South Africa’s Western Cape province. (Photo: from SAMSA Blog page)