The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) welcomes the order by Minister of Transport, Barbara Creecy, for an urgent safety inspection of all commercial fishing vessels operating in South African waters but is disappointed it took a vessel catching fire for the Department of Transport to act even though this has been a burning issue for years.

Minister Creecy ordered the South African Maritime Safety Authority (SAMSA) to conduct safety inspections of all commercial fishing vessels operating in the country’s waters, after a vessel belonging to the Sea Harvest Group caught fire in the early hours of Sunday morning off the coast of Gansbaai. Fortunately, all 20 crew members onboard were rescued unharmed by a vessel in the vicinity.

SAMSA said the 62-year-old vessel, MVF Armana, was initially thought to have sunk.

COSATU has been apprehensive about the safety of fishermen on duty after the MVF Lepanto sank off the coast of Houtbay in May, tragically taking the lives of 11 fishermen with it. The bodies of these 11 workers have never been recovered by the employer.  They were declared presumed dead by an order of the Western Cape High Court on 30 September to enable compensation to be paid to the families.

The MVF Lepanto also belonged to the Sea Harvest Group.

General Secretary Solly Phetoe and other COSATU officials met with the families of the 11 fishers in Cape Town on 11 September. Heartsore, the families said they had not received any tangible support from Sea Harvest and that the company did not communicate with them in a uniform manner. Some families were kept abreast of developments while others were left in the dark. Some were offered access to counselling services, others were not, even though they all needed it, especially the children.

Consequently, the bereaved families mandated COSATU to communicate with Sea Harvest, SAMSA and all other stakeholders on their behalf, ensuring a clear channel of communication accessible to all families.

On 13 September, the Federation wrote a letter to Minister Creecy, Minister of Employment and Labour Nomakhosazana Meth, Minister of Environment, Forestry and Fisheries Dion George, Chairperson of Parliament’s Portfolio Committee on Employment and Labour Mr Boyce Maneli and SAMSA, explaining the plight of the families.

In the letter, COSATU called on Minister Meth to facilitate the urgent inspection of all Sea Harvest vessels older than 50 years. According to a fishing expert COSATU consulted, vessels older than 60 years should not still be going out to sea. The MVF Armana is 62 years old, and we have it on good authority that the MVF Lepanto was 63 years old.

Ministers Creecy, Meth and George are set to meet with COSATU on Friday. In the meeting, the Federation intends to clarify the role SAMSA is supposed to play, because from where we sit the authority has not fulfilled its role in protecting workers’ lives.

SAMSA is charged with giving the stamp of approval that a vessel is fit to go out to sea. Given one Sea Harvest vessel sank and the other caught on fire five months apart, COSATU demands to know who keeps clearing these vessels to go out to sea.

This is a ticking time bomb, COSATU wonders why the ministers did not act sooner, it is sheer luck no one got hurt on Sunday. The questions remain, how did the vessel catch fire? Why did the Lepanto sink?    

In the letter, COSATU also called upon Minister Creecy to instruct SAMSA to provide a preliminary report of the investigation conducted to date, and to give SAMSA a deadline by which the full investigation must be completed, because the families felt that eight months was an unacceptably long time to wait to find out what happened to their loved ones. The Federation also urged Minister Creecy to instruct Sea Harvest and SAMSA to provide details of efforts made to retrieve the bodies of the fishers.

COSATU is appalled Sea Harvest did not bother to inform the families when it approached the court to declare the 11 fishermen presumed dead. Worse still, affected families report that they haven’t heard from the company since the court declared their loved ones, and in most cases their breadwinners dead.

The Federation believes that Sea Harvest is a callous, cruel and criminally negligent employer that does not care about its workers, their families or about complying with health and safety regulations. COSATU therefore calls on the responsible authorities to hold the company and its executives fully accountable under the law and to enforce criminal sanctions against them for these tragedies.

COSATU will stop at nothing to ensure the families are fully compensated for their loss; that Sea Harvest is held liable for the loss of life and for flouting regulations; and that operators in the fishing industry comply with health and safety standards.

Issued by COSATU

Zanele Sabela(COSATU National Spokesperson)

Mobile: 079 287 5788 / 077 600 6639

Email: zanele@cosatu.org.za