The South African Deep-Sea Trawling Industry Association (SADSTIA) has elected Sea Harvest chief executive, Felix Ratheb, as chair of the Association.
Ratheb takes over from his Sea Harvest colleague, Terence Brown, who chaired the Association for the past three years.
Ratheb has more than 17 years of experience in the fishing industry. He joined Sea Harvest as a commercial manager in 2003, was promoted to group sales & marketing director in 2006, and group CEO in 2013. He has represented Sea Harvest at SADSTIA since 2013 and served as a trustee on the board of the Marine Stewardship Council from 2016 to 2019. He is also a board member and treasurer of the largest whitefish conference in the world, the Groundfish Forum, which is headquartered in Canada.
“I am excited to take up the chairmanship of SADSTIA,” said Ratheb. “The hake deep-sea trawl fishery is a South African success story – it is sustainable, highly transformed and makes a massive socio-economic contribution, especially in the coastal provinces. I am eager to represent the fishery and the interests of our members.”
SADSTIA is one of the most influential organisations in the local fishing industry owing to the fact that its 32 members generate approximately half of the value of South Africa’s fishery production. These companies catch, process and export a range of value-added hake products and also supply a competitive local market with fresh and frozen hake. Together, SADSTIA members directly employ an estimated 7 225 employees, while an additional 6 000 indirect jobs are created by the economic activity that the fishery generates.
Ratheb explains that the hake trawl fishery is currently being re-assessed for a fourth time by the Marine Stewardship Council, the world’s leading certification and eco-labelling program for sustainable, wild-caught fish. The fishery was first certified as sustainable by the MSC in 2004. Although the MSC standard that is being applied is more rigorous than the standard that has been applied over the past 16 years, SADSTIA is optimistic the fishery will be re-certified for a further five-year period early in 2021.
Other priorities for SADSTIA over the coming year will be working collaboratively with the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment to manage the Covid-19 pandemic and its effects on the fishery, with the goal of preserving jobs.
“This pandemic will have affected every one of our members, and company balance sheets will have been severely weakened. The industry needs to survive this because it is a large employer providing quality jobs in coastal towns, and it is a significant exporter,” said Ratheb.
Innocent Dwayi, employee and stakeholder relations manager at I&J, remains in the position of SADSTIA vice-chairman. He is also vice-chairman of the umbrella fisheries association FishSA.
Other members of the SADSTIA Executive Committee are Madoda Khumalo, strategic services executive at Sea Harvest, who chairs the SADSTIA Scientific Committee; Don Lucas, chief executive of Combined Fishing Enterprises; Jayesh Jaga, executive director responsible for the hake operations within Blue Continent Products (Oceana Group); and Terence Brown, operations director at Sea Harvest.
Johann Augustyn continues in his position as secretary of SADSTIA, taking responsibility for the day-to-day running of the Association. He is assisted by Fisokuhle Mbatha, SADSTIA research assistant.
SADSTIA was founded in 1974, originally with three members. It has played a central role in the growth and development of the hake deep-sea trawl fishery and the South African fishing industry in general.
