Fisheries and Marine Resources Minister Derek Klazen has denounced the alleged entitlement of fishermen who, he claimed, want to dictate the type of work they should do.
Klazen, during a renewal of employment contracts for fishermen employed under the governmental employment redressing programme, noted that the fishermen feel entitled and are disrespectful towards employers, continuously threatening employers with mass resignations and demonstrations and threatening that the quota belongs to them.
The event, which took place in Windhoek on Friday, aimed to renew the designation agreements with designated fishing companies as well as assess the performance of these companies to determine whether there is full compliance.
“The designation agreements do not afford fishermen the right to choose where to be placed, as the agreements only require the placement of fishermen wherever an opportunity for placement arises,” Klazen expressed.
The minister further noted that in this instance, companies are fully compliant, with a few exceptions of challenges picked up along the way, which he said are receiving attention.
Some of those challenges being experienced, according to Klazen, are limited employment opportunities within the fishing industry, resulting in the non-gainful employment of the fishermen.
Seven fishing companies in Walvis Bay in 2023 signed agreements to re-employ about 1,000 fishermen who lost their jobs in 2015 aboard numerous fishing vessels, following their participation in an illegal industrial strike, now referred to as the Okapale fishermen.
The group also includes fishermen who were laid off from Namsov, owing to a 48% cut in its horse mackerel quota in 2015 and those who lost their employment after being abandoned by two fishing vessels operating under the Icelandic company Samherji, namely Saga and Geysir, in 2020.
Meanwhile, the leader of the Popular Democratic Movement, McHenry Venaani, who joined fishermen who petitioned the government at Walvis Bay on Friday, questioned the government’s employment redress programme for the unemployed fishermen and the allocation of fishing quotas.
Venaani questioned why the government has given fishing quotas to companies, some of which do not have vessels.
“Companies that do not have fishing vessels do not have the capacity to absorb workers. You are coming to workers and lying to them. Companies are profiting off of these fishermen while they sit at home without jobs and claim they are paying them even while at home. Let us reallocate quotas to companies that have fishing vessels and employ all these fishermen. Those who have no vessels should act like all business people and either go to the banks or buy vessels so that we can have all the fishermen back at sea,” Venaani expressed.