Is Kawana using the ‘Esau Marine Act’ to allocate rights?

JEMIMA BEUKESWINDHOEKFisheries minister Albert Kawana says he is using the Marine Resources Act 27 of 2000 to allocate fishing rights and quotas, and not the gazetted amended Act of 2015 which enabled the Fishrot bribery scandal.A lawyer who spoke to Namibian Sun on condition of anonymity yesterday said Kawana was ‘lying’ by stating that he was using a law that was discarded five years ago and was no longer in existence.Former fisheries minister Bernardt Esau, who is in jail awaiting trial over the so-called Fishrot bribery scandal, pushed for amendments to the Marine Resources Act 27 of 2000 so that he could get more powers to decide who gets fishing rights.Kawana enjoys the same amount of power to allocate rights and quotas. The minister recently said he was “98% done” allocating fishing rights.The Marine Resources Amendment Act of 2015 was never repealed and remains in use.Dubbed the ‘Esau Marine Act’, the revised law was used to strip fishing rights from several companies and shift them to state-owned fishing company Fishcor, which is currently at the centre of the Fishrot scandal after it was allegedly used to allocate fishing quotas to Icelandic company Samherji, allegedly in exchange for millions of dollars in bribes.Kawana in January told Namibian Sun that provisions of the new Act would be reversed, but this did not happen.“A lot of things have to be done, particularly when it comes to the Fisheries and Marine Resources Act. It must be amended to make sure whatever went wrong in the past is rectified,” he said at the time.What went wrong in the past, many would argue, was giving the minister the sole mandate of deciding on allocation of fishing rights – a provision which Esau allegedly abused and a privilege that Kawana still enjoys as a ‘new’ minister in the portfolio.Kawana was in defensive mode when approached for clarity yesterday.“My dear, that question is provocative. I am sick and tired of these accusations. It is really painful. Some of these things are just agendas. That law is the law of 2000, which is about fishing rights and about quotas. That is the law I am using,” he said.He added that the process to have the Marine Resources Act of 2015 re-amended was under way but might be delayed because of the Covid-19 pandemic which affected his work.“As for amendment or a completely new Act, a lot of charges are coming. You will recall that I had an engagement with the industry to agree on the charges [and] I have already agreed with the industry on a number of issues. On others, consultations are still ongoing,” said Kawana.RED FLAGSThe Institute of Public Policy and Research (IPPR) executive director Graham Hopwood said the only way of allaying public fears that Fishrot-style corruption is continuing within the fishing industry is to adopt an approach of absolute transparency.“IPPR have called for an official inquiry into the past allocation of fisheries rights and quotas with a view to amending the law to establish a corruption-proof allocation system. All allocations should be announced publicly with the beneficial owners, i.e. the actual owners not proxies, of all the companies receiving rights and quotas being published,” he said.HeadacheFormer minister Esau’s amendments to the fisheries law followed a 2014 High Court ruling that said his allocation of 10 000 metric tonnes of horse mackerel to Fishcor was illegal because the entity was not a horse-mackerel fishing rights holder.Thousands of jobs were lost when several industry players were stripped of the fishing rights, leading to massive protests and sit-ins at Walvis Bay.jemima@namibiansun.com

Is Kawana using the ‘Esau Marine Act’ to allocate rights?

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Namibian Sun 2025-11-05

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Is Kawana using the ‘Esau Marine Act’ to allocate rights?

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Namibian Sun 2025-11-05

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