The industry says it faces collapse if Government does not intervene immediately and throw it a lifeline in terms of quota allocation and the waiving of certain fees and taxes that the companies are required to pay into State coffers.

Indeed, the current climate and economic conditions have contributed to making it difficult for most fishing companies operating locally to be profitable - the strength of the rand/Namibia dollar, low fish quotas and financial problems induced by high crude oil prices have impacted negatively on the viability of our fishing industry.

But, these developments did not occur overnight and are not unique to our Namibian fishing industry.

As Fisheries Minister Dr Abraham Iyambo put it on Wednesday, the problems the fishing industry finds itself having to deal with at present also expose a lack of or poor planning on the part of fishing companies themselves.

Pressure has been exerted on Government to 'bail out' struggling fishing companies, but what has the industry done to try and rescue itself? The fact of the matter, again as the Minister put it on Wednesday, is that the industry has not prepared well enough for the bad times.

The industry has had several good spells in which companies quietly raked in millions of dollars from selling their fish abroad.

Instead of the huge profits disappearing into the deep pockets of a few shareholders, companies should have made provision for lean times.

This would have gone a long way towards averting the closures and retrenchments of workers that we hear about almost daily.

Most local fishing companies operate very old fishing vessels.

Investments in new fishing vessels, for instance, would have reduced the maintenance costs quite substantially.

So, while Government can offer some relief to the fishing industry in tough times, the industry needs to play its part.

It cannot operate on the assumption that it will be plain sailing for the industry year in and year out.

As one Indian proverb notes: Call on God, but row away from the rocks.

We Must Not Turn A Blind Eye THIS newspaper has been outspoken in the past on the number of widespread sexual abuse cases that have involved many people, including highly placed officials, in positions of trust and responsibility.

Yet despite outcries, protests and public demonstrations, incidents continue unabated.

Again Namibians were shocked this week to learn that a school principal had been arrested on charges of alleged abduction and sexual harassment, and this is not the first time that our educators have been implicated in crimes against minor girls and women.

The negative effects of such cases are many.

Not only the impact on the women and girls in question, many of whom have had to receive psychological counselling, but also on the broader population of the schools in question and the nation at large.

Much emphasis is rightly placed on the importance of education and improving educational standards in a country such as ours, and we echo these sentiments.

But how can we move forward progressively when the very people entrusted to provide solid academic grounding to our youth, are themselves implicated in sordid affairs such as these? A recent reported incident in the US resulted in the firing of a principal and several teachers because they failed to notify police about a sexual assault on a girl pupil at the hands of several young boys, which indicates the low level of tolerance in some communities for just this kind of occurrence.

Our Ministry of Education has to immediately investigate any reports of such nature, and it is worrying to hear the charge that they largely turned a blind eye in the most recently reported case, until a charge was laid by one of the alleged victims.

The Ministry, among others, has to take a long and hard look at the role of teachers who are custodians of our youth, and the unions too, cannot afford to keep silent on such abuses.

Action must be taken to prevent people convicted of such offences from ever setting foot in an educational institution again.

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