Niël Terblanché
THE management of the National Fishing Corporation (Fishcor) has moved about 475 employees from Tunacor to Venmar Fishing in order to ensure that they continue to receive their salaries.
The move of the group employees is similar to a move by the state-owned fishing last November when the majority of the people employed by Seaflower Pelagic Processing in Walvis Bay were transferred to Tunacor.
In that case, Tunacor received a 4 000 metric ton horse mackerel quota from Fishcor to sustain the factory workers until the end of April this year with the agreement that some of the workers would be permanently employed by their host fishing company.
The new deal with Venmar Fishing is the same and would ensure that the workers will receive their salaries monthly until the end of December this year.
To sustain the 425 workers the company received a quota of 10 000 metric tons. Venmar Fishing is a freezer trawler operation, which means that most of the fish caught by the company, are processed and frozen at sea. As a result, Venmar Fishing has limited land-based processing facilities.
The move of employees from one host company to another was announced by the new interim Chief Executive Officer of Fishcor, Ruth Herunga. In the announcement, Herunga stated that 600 employees will be on a fixed-term contract with Venmar Fishing until 31 December 2021.
“Fishcor is pleased to announce that all 600 former employees of Seaflower Pelagic Processing (SPP) received their April salaries, as per their fixed-term contracts,” Herunga said in her announcement.
Herunga said that the workers will receive a basic salary, housing, and transport allowances.
Although Venmar Fishing does not have a processing facility she indicated that the people will work in the factory. She also said that some of the people will be responsible for administrative work.
Herunga said that 600 workers will be accommodated at Venmar Fishing even though Seaflower Pelagic Processing employed 655 people. Only 425 moved to Tunacor and of those 50 were offered permanent employment at Tunacor which means that only 375 workers are part of the new deal.
In the meantime, Fishcor has been auctioning off the government’s portion of the horse mackerel and hake quotas to the highest bidder in order to honour its financial obligations such as paying municipal accounts that have fallen in arrears and the salaries of members of the interim board of directors of the state-owned fishing company.
