This Week on Special Assignment

This week on Special Assignment SABC 3 at 21h30 on Tuesdays "Running on empty" - Broadcast Script

RUNNING ON EMPTY

While every attempt has been made to ensure this transcript or summary is accurate, Special Assignment or its agents cannot be held liable for any claims arising out of inaccuracies caused by human error or electronic fault. This transcript was typed from a transcription recording unit and not from an original script, so due to the possibility of mishearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, errors cannot be ruled out.

UPS: - VOICER - Marine and Coastal Management is one of South Afican’s most important environmental agencies responsible for our most valuable resource. But now it’s on the brink of financial collapse and its most important functions have been cut back The Auditor General says its books are so bad that his office can’t give an audited opinion. Tonight we ask why should we care?

UPS: - HORST KLEINSCHMIDT; FISHERIES CONSULTANT & FORMER HEAD: MCM - Twenty odd years ago the world over there was no one who really thought they needed to care about what is fish out of the ocean of the world. And that was because there was a belief that had been a reality for hundred of years that the oceans were there as a replenishable resource that you could take and they will reproduce. Not like a gold mine where you take the gold out and then the mine is dead. Fish has a way of reproducing, except if you take out too much and hen the reproductive capacity is reduced that is what happened twenty years ago and suddenly we needed in the world marine scientists who said lets find out what is going on here and it all came through over fishing especially the case of species that have long lives that get sexually mature only after man, many years if you interfere in that cycle suddenly there is no reproduction suddenly the whole cycle impacts.

PRE-TITLE: RUNNING ON EMPTY

UPS:- VOICER – It’s not only the worlds oceans that are running on empty however here in South Africa the very government agency responsible for our fish stock is also falling apart. Marine and Coastal management or MCM has run out of money to do its work due to mismanagement. MCM is under the stewardship of Dr Mande Mayekiso, seven years ago he was removed from this position after an investigation into MCM founded to grossly deficient. The report is damning it refers to the absence of leadership lack of competence and serious financial irregularities. It found Dr Mayekiso to be out of his depth as a manager said he wasn’t suitable for the position and recommended he be relieved of his post immediately. Yet today all this seems forgotten Dr Mayekiso is the boss of MCM once again re- appointed by the very man who dismissed him six years ago. History seems to be repeating itself.

UPS:- VOICER – Marine and Coastal Management is responsible for protecting and conserving all South Africa’s fish stocks and other marine resources along the coast and in river estuaries.. These stocks are South Africa’s biggest natural resource and worth billions to the economy and proper management is crucial to ensures that these stocks remain sustainable. MCM is also responsible for marine research, for harbours for handling ecological disasters like oil spills and for enforcing the law when it comes to poaching and over-fishing. It’s a massive job for a relatively small organisation.

UPS: - SHAHEEN MOOLA; FISHERIES CONSULTANT & FORMER MCM DIRECTOR -You sit back and think about the fact that you have an obligation with very little man power four patrol vessels one hundred and sixty fisher control officers to protect and conserve almost a thousand species of fish more than one thousand fishing boats in your waters more than four thousand quota holders more than fifteen harbours within your coastline the obligations and responsibilities are quite profound and they can overwhelm even the most dedicated official control officer.

UPS: - VOICER – And that seems to be exactly what has happened. At a recent meeting of the parliament try oversight committee on finance MCM took a tongue lashing for what one member called non-performance.

UPS: - VOICER – Dr Monde Mayekiso, the head of MCM. He took over the leadership of this agency in June last year and for the past fifteen months has been in charge of all operations. Apart from the financial and management issues raised by SCOPA some of the others problems seems to be huge budget cuts in strategic areas, low staff morale and the loss of scientist and key personnel. Dr Mayekiso however denies that this is the case.

UPS: - DR MONDE MAYEKISO; HEAD: MCM - I don’t think we should derive we should draw conclusion that it is an organisation with serious problems I honestly do not believe it.

UPS: - VOICER - Those on the ground do not agree. Our sources tell compliance has been badly affected by budget cuts and policy decisions by the department. They say poaching again is on the increase and syndicates are stepping up operations

UPS: - SHAHEEN MOOLA; FISHERIES CONSULTANT & FORMER MCM DIRECTOR - What is coming abundantly clear is that poaching is increasing and has increased quite dramatically particularly abalone poaching. We hear very regular now reports between ten and twenty super ducks poaching openly in protected areas or off die island it all depends where there is a patrol vessel and if one considers that super duck with about ten people aboard will take a thousand abalone per boat per night we staring down the barrel of calamity .

AD BREAK 1

UPS: - VOICER – Two years ago the Minister declared war on poaching. With great fanfare he established the Marines anti-poaching unit. They would work with local municipalities he said to stop enforce the law.

UPS: - MARTINUS VAN SCHALKWYK; MINISTER: ENVIRONMENTAL AFFAIRS & TOURISM - Quite a substantial increase in our capacity our ability to enforce what we announce what we see here is a new anti-poaching unit. It will be much better managed and co-ordinated we will double the money that we invest in this an additional of eight million rand that will be in the excess of fifteen million rand. We will have permanently placed speed boat there we will work closely with the national defence force, helicopters we will have a dedicated team working with the scorpions and asset forfeiture unit we mean business.

UPS: - SHAHEEN MOOLA; FISHERIES CONSULTANT & FORMER MCM DIRECTOR – it was recognised as thee most successful anti-poaching unit. It could not be argued we saw poaching dropped literally within months of marine coming into play poaching decreased quite rapidly an incident reporting decreased rapidly and prices of abalone also went up.

UPS: - VOICER – the marines were the most effective anti-poaching unit ever run by MCM but they no longer exists and the money set aside for compliance has also not gone up but in fact been slashed its almost half of what it was two years ago. Although the marines are longer operational, Dr Mayekiso insists they have not have been shut down.

UPS: - DR MONDE MAYEKISO; HEAD: MCM - The fact of the matter is that the contract came to an end and they being mandate by an inappropriate organisation by that I mean the municipality does not have a responsibility for marine resources. So there was something that was exactly right there and what we are doing is correcting that.

UPS: - VOICER – While MCM builds a new structure to take over the work the marines did so well another blow has been the closing of the environmental courts. Three years ago, the worlds first Green Court was opened in Hermanus

UPS: - SHAHEEN MOOLA; FISHERIES CONSULTANT & FORMER MCM DIRECTOR – that court proved itself within the matter of twelve months from a success rate of ten percent in a normal court the general court as it were to a success rate in its first year of seventy percent and its second year of eighty five percent was phenomenal. Not only in terms of success rate in conviction but we were pumping out cases of almost a hundred every two months so it was a court that was able to process cases fast and guarantee a prosecution. Whether that prosecution meant jail time and many instances it did but in other instances it made heavy fines, fines leaping from forty thousand rand to eighty hundred rand all of a sudden we were hurting the poaches where it needed to hurt that was in their pockets.

UPS: - VOICER - But the political commitment to environmental cases seems to have disappeared despite the success of the Green courts. The Department of Justice has closed them down. All cases now have to wind their way through the regular legal system. Finances or in this case the lack of them lie at the heart of MCM. This is how the financial system works the Department of Environmental Affairs and Tourism pays all salaries but MCM has to pay for everything else with money its generates itself. This is done through levies on harbours and fishing as well as fines, fees, licences and the sale of confiscated fish and fish products like abalone. All this income goes to Marine Living Resources Fund. The ability of MCM to do its job stands and falls by how much money is in this fund. This is where the bosses of MCM came in for their greatest criticism because the MLRF is broke. The main reason for this seems to be the lack of proper internal controls and no effective financial system to track and collect income. There is also no planning place how MCM plans to pay for the increase operating costs for the new operating vessels one of its most effective law enforcement tools.

UPS: - DR MONDE MAYEKISO; HEAD: MCM - We have not had a financial system an operative financial system for the last three years and that is the reason we could not account properly because we do not have a financial system. A financial system that was commissioned two years ago collapsed it did not do what it was supposed to do. And that is the issue that has been raise time and again by the auditor general.

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UPS: - VOICER - An internal memo leaked to special assignment spells out how deep this crisis is. Two weeks ago ESKOM was about to cut electricity in MCM offices due to non-payment. Management was in a panic and send out this e- mail to tell staff to authorise the most critical orders. MCM was effectively running on empty.

UPS: - DR MONDE MAYEKISO; HEAD: MCM - The money issue I think it is blown out of proportion a temporarily cash flow problem that should correct itself in our case when the fishing starts this is a lean period for our activities because most of the fisheries are not being pursued and they start October, November and our cash flow situation improves.

UPS: - VOICER - This is not true the biggest and most lucrative fisheries for MCM are hake and …... They don’t opened close but are year around fisheries so there is therefore no windfall coming MCM way soon and no immediate solution to this cash crisis. The Auditor General Shauket Fakie said there are serious governance shortcomings within MCM. Areas in the latest financial records are so wide spread and so serious that his unable to give an audited opinion. This is the worst audited opinion possible. Obviously control like debtors systems a cost recovery strategy and even the documentation necessary for MCM to pay tax SARS are non-existent. The discrepancies run deep and study of the financials from 2002 show worrying drops in income. The sale of confiscated fish dropped to R52 million rand in 2005 to R15 million rand in 2006. This despite an estimated sixty tons of confiscated abalone stock pilled in MCM storage facility. This is MCM warehouse in Cape Town this is some of the confiscated product that has been laying here for the past eleven months. By not selling this material MCM has lost out on at least twenty million rand that could have generated for their bankrupt fund. While they are not getting in the money they could be generating they are also spending staggering amounts on administrative costs. The 2006 financial reports states that travel and entertainment expenses fro instance clock in at a record high of R26 million and other undefined other operating costs came R19 million these are huge expenses for a relatively small department of more than six hundred people. Parts of the explanations must be found in financial choices like last year lavish Christmas parties and opting to fly business class of economy. While these cost go up budgets for the real work at hand like research and compliance go down. By last week there was no money left in the fund. Telephones, travel and million rand of worth credit cards expenses and vessels management were all unpaid and there was no income plan for the rest of the year. When questioned in Parliament recent about the crisis in MCM and asked what he intends in doing about it. The Minister of Environmental Affairs Martinus van Schalkwyk said a new management team had been appointed in May last year and he also spoke about the other rays of controls and measures. The truth of the matter is this new team the Minister refers to is infact not new at all. Now the women who now Director General was infact the Chief Operating Officer since 2003 and therefore would have been accountable of what was going on in the time that things were going steadily down hill at MCM

UPS: - VOICER - Director General Pam Nyako was not available for comment while MCM reels under the cash crisis she and the Head of MCM were are away on business overseas. MCM does not have stability of continuity and stability in 1999 there was such chaos within these entity that then Minister Valli Moosa call in this man to stabilise the ship. Horst Kleinscmidt replaced then head of MCM was being investigated for mismanagement and that man was the same man who is now running MCM again Dr Monde Mayekiso

UPS: - HORST KLEINSCHMIDT; FISHERIES CONSULTANT & FORMER HEAD: MCM – I was brought in at the time when the morale and the public image of MCM was probably at all time low. There had been major questions asked in Parliament in the newspapers and discplinaries had been taken out against five staff members and I was asked to come and help the Minister Mr Valli Moosa at the time to help sort that out. We started from low ebb in the history of Marine and Coastal Management.

UPS: - VOICER - In 2004 Horst Kleinschmidt resigned after he received this letter. He was accused of having two many whites and coloured people in his department and stripped of his power to appoint his own staff. Pam Nyako said he could not be trusted with affirmative action his colleague and Chief Director of MCM Shaheen Moola resigned in support of Kleinschmist stance

UPS: - SHAHEEN MOOLA; FISHERIES CONSULTANT & FORMER MCM DIRECTOR – If fishery’s management was going to be forced to be a bureaucratic procedures in terms of filing out forms ticking boxes attending meeting planning but no implementation then I could not justify collecting a salary at the end of the month or being in a senior position therefore countable not only to scientist and fisher control officers but also to the fishing community.

UPS: - VOICER Dr Monde Mayekiso was then head hunted to fill the very post he’s been asked to leave five years earlier today he and his boss Pam Nyako and hers Martinus van Schalkwyk are responsible for the state of affairs at MCM the guardian of South Africa most valuable natural resource.