A GROUP of former fishermen who worked on the Icelandic fishing company Samherji’s vessels are demanding re-employment and recognition amid the Fishrot scandal.
The group of about 40 yesterday met with the Walvis Bay Urban constituency councilor Deriou Benson at the town, where they made these demands.
In March 2020, more than 180 fishermen who worked on the Samherji MV Saga and Geyser vessels were retrenched.
The two vessels were chartered to the Esja Seafood Limited, one of Samherji’s subsidiary companies in Cyprus.
Samherji evacuated the two vessels out of Namibian waters in early 2020 under dubious circumstances as the Fishrot case was unfolding.
One of the former fishermen, Petrus Hilumbwa, claims that their role in harvesting the fish that made many people rich and others go to jail is not recognised.
He says since their retrenchments, no one bothered to offer them a solution to their unemployment situation apart from empty promises.
“If there is nothing then we know they have abandoned us. If we are included in the Fishrot case then they must also come and arrest us and take us to jail like the rest of the Fishrot accused,” said Hilumbwa.
At the councillor’s office, the fishermen demanded that Benson ask the governor of Erongo region, Andre Neville, to tell them if there are jobs for them. They also asked that they be given monthly allowances like other fishermen who lost their jobs as a result of Fishrot.
“Government [should] just gives us jobs or they must also put us on the payroll like the other fishermen. That is all that we want. We also want to be treated like the other fishermen,” says Jackson Christian, another fishermen.
Since 2020, the ministry of fisheries has been offering fish quotas to companies in exchange for the employment of the fishermen who were fired from their job for participating in an illegal strike in 2015. These also included those from Namsov, whose quota was slashed.
In 2020, the ministry also went into an agreement with Cavema Fishing to pay a monthly salary of about N$4 000 to 650 fishermen in exchange for a quota.
Some 400 fishermen are still unemployed, although they are part of the quota for jobs salary programme.
Councilor Benson had no answers to the fishermen’s plight, but advised them to organise themselves through labour unions.
“They are unfortunately your legal representatives and we will need to work with them through the governor,” he said.
