Etosha Fishing to sell purse seine fleet

Otis Finck - Etosha Fishing is selling its three purse seine vessels and says the move will result in the retrenchment of 19 workers.

The company says poor catches in foreign waters forced it to sell its three vessels, the Prowess, Advance and Morgenster.

According to the company the three-year ban on local pilchard catches imposed in 2018 left it with no choice but to deploy its to neighbouring Angola and other foreign fishing grounds in an effort to sustain jobs and the running costs of these vessels.

The acting MD of Etosha Fishing, Nezette Beukes, says low catch rates compounded the financial burden of operating the vessels in foreign waters.

“This left the company with no other choice but to sell all our purse seine vessels and this means that we are no longer in a position to provide employment to the crew of these vessels.”

Some of the employees affected are net workers.

Union

Negotiations with the recognised union, the Namibian Seamen and Allied Workers Union (NASAWU) started in January. A formal notification was also issued to the Office of the Labour Commissioner.

“Affected staff members were initially informed of possible retrenchments as early as December 2018. We wanted to make sure that our employees were well informed from the start of the process to avoid any uncertainty and to ensure transparency throughout the process,” Beukes says.

NASAWU vice-president Epson Kavekuire, who negotiated on behalf of the retrenched staff, says the union opposes any job losses but understands that Etosha is in a very difficult position.

“If they cannot catch, they cannot provide work.”

He expressed satisfaction with the manner in which the negotiations were conducted.

Etosha Fishing still operates one vessel, the Iona, which was converted to a refrigerated seawater vessel (RSW) at a substantial cost in 2018 to be able to fish in local waters. The Iona lands fresh horse mackerel for processing at its cannery in Walvis Bay.

Pilchards

In response to Namibia’s dwindling pilchard resource, Etosha Fishing has since 2010 been importing frozen pilchards for processing on local soil in order to sustain its operations and jobs at its cannery in Walvis Bay.

Etosha Fishing operates the oldest cannery in Namibia, which employs 44 permanent and close to 550 seasonal staff.

The mainstay of its business over the years has been the canning of pilchards for brands such as Lucky Star and Glenryck SA.

The company also spearheaded value addition to horse mackerel in 2013 when it became the first company to can locally caught horse mackerel.

Its EFUTA Maasbanker brand celebrated its fifth anniversary in December 2018, with nearly five million cans sold annually.