Mid-water trawl fishery hit by massive increase in levies

Namibia’s midwater trawl fishing sector has been dealt a potentially disastrous blow with increases on average of 391 % and 692 % on levies per ton of fish landed and levies on quotas.
The industry is gravely concerned that these levies would lead to financial ruin, particularly for newcomer operators in the horse mackerel sector.
The regulation introducing these increased levies was signed into law on 26 June this year.
“We learnt of these exorbitant increases in levies two weeks ago at our midwater trawl association’s annual general meeting. We had no idea that this was coming”, a senior manager in the industry explained yesterday. He declined to be mentioned by name, but referred to an industry document as well as the Government Gazette in which the Minister of Fisheries and Marine Resources Bernhardt Esau published the revised levies.
“Fishing companies in the midwater trawl sector are already operating at a loss. You would recall that fees for fisheries observers increased some time ago from N$800 000 per vessel per annum to N$3 million per vessel per annum.
A tax on foreign crew was also instituted which can be as much as N$10 million per year. At the time, we already expressed concerns that our industry is increasingly coming under financial burden. We cannot understand that our own Government is doing this”, it was explained.
At the recent annual general meeting, the bombshell was dropped of the drastically increased quota fees. A document supplied to namib times explains the impact:
A Namibian flagged vessel landing fish in port’s levy per ton increased from N$60 to N$294,50.
Equally a Namibian flagged vessel transhipping’s fee per ton increased from N$80 to N$475 per ton.
On a volume of 10 000 tons of fish it means an operator with a Namibian flagged vessel in the midwater trawl sector now has to fork out N$2,9 million, up from N$600 000. On 30 000 tons, the operator pays N$8,8 million up from N$1,8 million.
For operators who partnered up with foreign vessels the picture looks even worse:
A Namibian-based foreign vessel [the vessel is classified as Namibian based if it operates here for a long period and has more than 55 % Namibians as crew members] the levy per ton landed increased from N$80 per ton to N$589 per ton and transhipping from N$120 per ton to N$950 per ton [per 10 000 tons the levy increases from N$800 000 to N$5,890 million and on 30 000 tons it increased from N$2,4 million to N$17,670 million. The same for transhipment: on 10 000 tons, it increased from N$1,2 million to N$9,5 million and on 30 000 tons from N$3,6 million to N$28,8 million.
A foreign vessel [operating here on the short term and with a crew of less than 55 % Namibians or no Namibians as crew] the levy per ton landed increased from N$100 per ton to N$950 per ton and transhipping from N$180 per ton to N$1425 per ton [per 10 000 tons the levy increases from N$1 million to N$9,5 million and on 30 000 tons it increased from N$3 million to N$28,5 million.
The same for transhipment from a foreign vessel: on 10 000 tons, it increased from N$1,8 million to N$14,250 million and on 30 000 tons from N$5,4 million to N$42,750 million.