By Lerato Fekisi

Ndabeni was speaking during the provincial launch of the G20, taking place in Gqeberha over the next two days. The overall theme of the roadshow is the Marine and Oceans economy under the theme" The Oceans Economy, the next SA’s gold mine". 

The first day of the launch saw industry players, within the Oceans Economy, discuss challenges and successes within this industry in the province. Ndabeni-Abrahams highlighted how with an 800-kilometre coastline of strategic global importance, citing that the province is situated along key international shipping routes near the Cape of Good Hope. She added that this makes the province a vital hub for maritime trade between the Atlantic and Indian oceans. Ndabeni also emphasised that SA’s oceans economy is the country’s next gold mine, with townships and villages set to benefit.

“You will know that my interest will be how small businesses get to participate in the oceans economy itself. We have for a group of cooperatives from Gqeberha and other surrounding areas. Who have been given fishing rights and we are trying to assist them cause most of them will complain that they don’t have Infrastructure. They are forced to go and fish but they don't have access to market and as a result they are being exploited. Now we are coming in to say that this is an opportunity that must not only be exploited by those who can afford. How do we step in as the department we can assist them with the infrastructure,” Ndabeni-Abrahams said.

In 2019, the former Minister of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries, Barbara Creecy, handed certificates to 71 fishing co-operatives as recognition of their fishing rights and this also marked the start of presenting fishing rights. But several years later, there are allegations that many have not benefited from the licenses. Deputy Minister in that department, Nerend Singh, engaged with various players in the fishing industry to identify some of the challenges facing small scale fishers. Nerend Singh vowed to investigate some of the allegations that were raised during the engagement.

“As a department we have issued them with permits. They are 71 small scare corporative in the Eastern Cape and it's well and good to issue them with permits, but what are they going to do with these permits. From what we hear there are the bigger players, that are leasing these permits from small scale and paying them patterns for their fish and stuff like that. So I'm here to and will be taking forward these challenges,” Singh said.

The key objectives of the provincial launch is to create public awareness about SA’s hosting of the G20 Leaders Summit throughout the country. To provide members of the public with an opportunity to engage and contribute to the general discourse about the hosting of the G20 and to showcase specific economic strengths of the country through various provinces, in this case the Eastern Cape Province. The Premier of the Eastern Cape, Oscar Mabuyane, said the province’s municipalities must ensure that their development plans align with maximizing the potential of the ocean's economy.

”We need our municipalities to be focused. We have developed a oceans economy master plan that talks broadly on their entire sector of the blue economy. We want municipalities, when the do their early ED strategies to talk to it. So it's an opportunity of a lifetime. We are opening it up, we are exposed now to international markets, international business for trade as well as luring investors to come into our province. We are hard at work and we are using the oceans economy as one of our five frontiers. We want to push our GDP to double digits by using this golf mine the oceans economy,” Mabuyane said.

The Oceans Economy sector is one of the province’s growth frontiers. The sector contributes to three key economic development priorities namely, Industrialisation and Sector Development, Economic Infrastructure Development and Skills for the Economy. Chairperson of the country’s Maritime Business Chamber, Unathi Sonti, said he hopes that the engagements and panel discussion that took place will reignite the passion of those who want to get into this sector, but key to that is addressing the many challenges facing small scale fishermen.

“Right now with this resuscitation of the oceans  economy in the province , we believe that there is  great opportunity that we can bring all the stakeholders together and we work on one thing so that we can achieve at least a specific goal when it comes to the fishing co-ops, where we bring in all the resources in the province, even when we bring in the likes of small business development, we bring in the likes of ECDC and everyone, so that we are able to say that all these resources are enough  to assist these fishing communities,” Sonti said.

The day ended with the launch of an incubator at the Nelson Mandela University. On Wednesday the Minister will be in Nangoza Jebe Hall in New Brighton for a community engagement focusing on growing the township economy

---SABC---