The Federal Fisheries Council (CFP) and its members -according to the president of the nation Javier Milei- could be classified as "CASTA", since several of its members are not qualified; they do not work; they affect the support of their scarce activities as advisors with a large part of the money from the businessmen contributed through the rights of capture and other taxes and, in some cases, they remain entrenched in this organization despite the partisan changes in the government.
Given this situation and following his custom, the President could go so far as to describe the aforementioned Federal Fisheries Council and a significant number of its members with all or some of the following epithets already issued by the President: “ rotten caste, bunch of criminals, thieves, thieves, habitually swindlers, liars, traitors, cowards, imbeciles, retarded, donkeys, useless, nest of miserable rats, dirty ass, degenerate prosecutors, fascists, Nazis, communists, socialists, filthy lefties ” (sic) and many other unspeakable degrading lexicons towards these officials, whose State the aforementioned ruler “despises infinitely” and “comes to destroy from within.”
We do not share the use of these adjectives and statements by the president; although, when we see that an official does not seem competent for the responsibilities assigned to him, we prefer to define them as incapable, inept or idiots in the interpretation of the Greeks. On the other hand, we are in favor of transforming the structures of the State into efficient ones, that is what the management of a government is about; although, of course, this is not feasible when those who have to do it do not have the aptitude or attitude to do so. It is not a question of blaming the administered when the blame lies with those who manage the State, and we are referring to those who fulfill hierarchical functions in the structures of this and not to the employees whose inefficiency is most often the responsibility of the manager.
The increase in the cost of the State. The government has been saying publicly that businessmen exploit fishing resources for free and, although this information is false and does not take into account the taxes, fees, social and employer contributions and withholdings, etc., with which the sector is taxed, the truth is that the Federal Fisheries Council (CFP) has increased the capture rights in a very significant way without evaluating the cost structure of the companies and the international prices of the products that are marketed and, without modifying the distribution of the collections, increasing the funds destined to support bureaucratic structures of the Council and the Undersecretariat of Aquatic Resources and Fisheries of the Nation and, without returning these funds to works agreed with the sector, to research and control of the sea.
The Nation - Council and Undersecretariat - keeps 66.64% of the resources derived from rights, fines, etc. collected from the entrepreneurs, of which, only 10.37% is allocated to research and another 10.37% to patrol and control. In contrast, in any efficient productive activity the administration costs should never exceed 7% of the total of its personnel costs. In turn, the pompously called "Federal" Fisheries Council only gives all the Provinces 33.36% of what is collected, funds that we also do not know for what specific fishing purposes they are dedicated and that, in principle, should not be used to finance the administrative structures of the Provinces, for which they have their own collections derived from fishing within the 12 nautical miles.
In reality, fishing exploitation is a concession and the costs of administration, research and control of the sea and fishing should be managed between the granting authority and the concessionaires to make the activity feasible and based on this determine the value of the rights. It cannot be an arbitrary value imposed by a small number of people whose interests seem to be merely to collect revenue and not to develop the activity and the communities of the maritime coast.
What the government is doing is not making the State more efficient or reducing taxes on those who invest, produce and hire personnel, but quite the opposite; at the same time, deepening the discredit of the State and, under that pretext, opening paths to foreign ownership, etc.
Fisheries policy and the management of catch quotas. Although it is the obligation of the Federal Fisheries Council (CFP) to develop the fishing policy (Law 24.922 art. 9º inc. a) this Body has not designed such a policy and, consequently, from the granting of quotas and capture authorizations, it limits itself to delegating the administration of the resource to third parties and acts, and badly, as a mere supervisor of the activity. It does not even design a research and technological plan in accordance with the needs of production and, much less, establish the strategy of naval security controls and their financing. However, without a plan -which demonstrates a total lack of foresight- it reserves 32.52% of the Maximum Permissible Catch percentage of common hake; reason for which, when granting quotas in the future, it will do so with an inadmissible discretion in the hands of a few people, favoring bribery practices.
Regarding illegal fishing on migratory resources of the EEZ on the high seas and illegal fishing in the Malvinas, the Undersecretary of Fisheries and the CFP have not taken any action since the promulgation of Law 24.922 in 1998, and all of these agents could be involved in the breach of the duties of public officials.
The image of fishing activity . The The publication of the specialized media RevistaPuerto.com.ar was titled « Unspeakable: Sturzenegger called the Argentine fishing sector a thief and reported that the fishing sector only pays for extraction rights and assured that if they paid more the State would lower taxes in other places and generate more industry and employment than fishing » and mentioned that the Minister of Deregulation and Transformation of the State on Radio Mitre said that « the fishing sector only pays 0.15% to take the fish “from all Argentines” and boasted that Secretary Juan Pazo is raising the Extraction Rights to 2.5%, all mozzarella » and concluded his presentation « calling the Argentine fishing industry a thief… when the current contracts expire, I am not going to touch rights, among the Argentine fishermen they will have to bid to see how much they pay » .
We will start from the least to the greatest, Sturzenegger praises the action of the representative of the National Executive Power in the Council Juan Alberto Pazo (Decree No. 374 of 4/29/2024); but, this official who by his appointment was one of the main ones to define the fishing policy provided for in the Law did not participate in a single one of the 19 meetings held during the year by the Federal Fisheries Council. Will he have dealt with these issues in other areas? More “Caste” impossible. Well, this candidate for head of the ARCA (formerly AFIP), according to “La PolíticaOnline” (12/8/24) “will have to give explanations about undeclared assets in Miami and companies abroad”; it does not seem that this official is the most appropriate to “order” fishing.
We have already referred -and so have other authors- to the contempt and frivolity with which these officials have described the fishing sector; but it is also true that the sector has not wanted, has not been able or has not known how to lead a process of change and modernization of the activity (not only the construction of a ship or a processing plant) and has limited itself to introducing different operators in the Federal Fisheries Council and/or influencing the appointment of the undersecretary of fishing on duty -as all productive sectors do in their own areas- but it cannot be overlooked that, unlike other activities, the exploitation of the resource is a State concession and the leaders of the fishing industry have shown extreme weakness and dependence and not a powerful and essential industry. The lack of a single Plan derived from an atomized number of Chambers conspires against a strong position and the “every man for himself” has the effect of implosion . Furthermore, in Argentina fish is neither known nor consumed and this affects the officials. It is not Spain, but the Spaniards themselves who defend this noble product. There is much to say, but for the sake of summary we will end this topic here.
The dedication to work of the members of the Federal Fisheries Council (CFP) and the catch quotas. Although the main function of the CFP - as we have said - is to design the fishing policy; the councilors do not seem very fond of work; bearing in mind that any public employee works about 40 hours a week and these members of the Council during the whole year 2024 held 19 meetings where 27 Minutes were drawn up - the lowest number of discussions since 1999 - and they spent a total of about 20 hours for this; that is, an average of one hour per meeting. This could be the formal reason why, on December 5, the CFP only defined the allocation system for common hake quotas - the most important species that generates employment - keeping the entire activity in a state of uncertainty, since to date the validity of the quotas has not yet been defined, despite the claim of companies and unions (CFP Minutes 27/24 12/12/24). We know that this is not the reason and all kinds of arguments have been publicly circulated and even alleged bribes have been aired. We are not naive, the reservation of quotas by the CFP is very rare and the decision is based on a partial tender like the Chilean one announced in a timely manner and will be total if the granting of the capture quotas is limited to one year. In a game of pincers, the astronomical increase in the Single Extraction Right (DUE) is activated. Meanwhile, as we have already said, the fishing sector is limited to sending notes, the treatment of which - according to the Minutes - appears to be carried out outside the Council.
Federal fishing caste and suitability. But, if something is wrong and -there are many things that are wrong- the first people that Federico Sturzenegger or any other official on duty should look at are those who make up the Federal Fisheries Council (CFP). How can the minister pretend to transform this sector when the Undersecretary of Fisheries and President of the CFP is a faithful representative of "the caste". López Cazorla, the one in question, was a member of this body from 2006 to 2019, going through all the governments without a break and never -according to the minutes of the meetings- contributed anything related to the change of the activity; he raised the need to modify the quota granting system or questioned the value of the catch rights. Obviously he did not behave for 14 years as the person responsible for defining the fisheries policy. The same could be said of Carlos Cantú, who has been in the CFP since 2002 to 2015 and from 2020 to date, and who was, for many years, the representative of the National Executive Branch. Many others are omitted for reasons of synthesis.
The CFP's duties involve the complexity of managing a very complex activity that involves the capture, processing of products and their export; but it also implies having knowledge of economic, commercial, biological, maritime, climatic, environmental and health issues, as well as conducting research and intervening in matters relating to the safety of the crew and the nation and managing the activity as a whole. It is not a mission intended to be carried out by people who do not have extensive knowledge in the field. It is capable of designing and leading the national fishing policy and with it very important economic, social and regional interests.
In addition, a certain thematic commitment is required. We see, for example, the case of Juan Alberto Pazo, who has moved from the insurance superintendence to ARCA, previously serving as Foreign Relations Secretary; but, as a member of the Fisheries Council, he did not attend a single work meeting during the year. The same goes for Miguel Schmukler, who from the Fund for the Expansion of the Productive Matrix of Tierra del Fuego (FAMP), where industrial fishing is irrelevant in relation to its peers in Buenos Aires, Chubut and Santa Cruz, became a member of the Council at the request of Minister Caputo, where he participated in only eight of the 19 meetings held during the year. And so, several councillors, like those appointed, who, when they took office, only knew about the subject from a fish in a restaurant or through the traditional INIDEP poster of species.
Also, as an example, the Representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Paola Andrea Gucioni who -we assume- was not incorporated into the Council for having provided -according to the AFIP- " personal services ncp, including astrology and spiritualism activities, those carried out for social purposes such as marriage agencies, genealogical research, hiring of companions, the activity of shoe shiners, car attendants, etc. (960990)" as indicated ( www.dateas.com/es/persona/paola-andrea-gucioni ; https://w20argentina.com/empresa/gucioni-paola-andrea ) or for having worked in the Malvinas Department of the Foreign Ministry, an area that does not qualify her to be knowledgeable about fisheries issues. The department should be required to publish documented CVs of officials.
The State must be reorganized, but in general the solution is not to close, grant concessions, privatize or increase the tax costs of production to justify the inefficiency of the organizations, while blaming the administrators, but to put honest and suitable officials in charge who transform the administrator into an effective tool to deal with the non-delegable issues of the State, to serve to stimulate Argentine production and industry and to defend national sovereignty.
Dr. Cesar Augusto Lerena
Expert in South Atlantic and Fisheries.
Former Secretary of State.
President of the Center for Latin American Fisheries Studies (CESPEL)
Web: cesarlerena.com.ar
December 14, 2024
