EMEA News
South African Agency Hires Nautic Africa to Help with Bunkering
A South African government agency has hired Cape Town shipyard Nautic Africa (Nautic) to help run bunkering, crewing, and other logistics operations for its fishery research and protection vessels, the African Business Journal reports.
The Department of Agriculture Forestry and Fisheries (DAFF) is seeking to get its six ships in full operations as soon as possible so that fisheries management can continue uninterrupted.
"The partnership with the DAFF is a good example of our commitment in ensuring that we support South African small businesses and creation of jobs for personnel to support the DAFF fleet," Nautic said in an announcement of the deal.
"It must further be emphasised that [Nautic Africa] is committed to ensuring that maritime skills are retained in South Africa for future development of our growing maritime industry."
DAFF also hired Cape Town's Damen Shipyard to repair and maintain the fleet, which consists of four protection and two research vessels, African security industry news site Defence Web reports.
The contract with Damen follows the expiration of a contract between DAFF and the Navy, under which the Navy took over maintenance, repair, bunkering, and other operations functions for DAFF.
The Navy had found the fleet to be in poor condition, with extensive work required to make the vessels seaworthy, and it deployed three warships to handle the work at fisheries so that research and protection operations could continue.
The contract between DAFF and the Navy was not extended after a government committee meeting in February revealed that at least four of the vessels were still in dry dock and another still needed engine work that had been planned for April 2012.
