The allegation is that Icelandic fishing company Samherji made ‘facilitation payments’ to secure access to pelagic quotas, and subsequently squirrelled away the profits from the resulting fishing operations off western Africa through a web of accounts in different countries and a shell company in the Marshall Islands.
The scale of the alleged swindle is breathtaking; $10 million in bribes to the two Namibian ministers and people in their immediate circle, and $70 million that no taxman ever got a sniff of – least of all the tax authorities in Namibia where a large proportion of the population lives in poverty westerners can hardly begin to imagine.
It’s not easy to gauge the depth of anger in Iceland, where the concept of quotas becoming private property that could be bought, sold, exchanged or mortgaged was largely pioneered and remains a highly contentious subject today, more than thirty years on from the implementation of the quota system that morphed into full-strength ITQs.
For Iceland, this is a very big deal. Unlike most nations where fishing is a modest industry that attracts little attention, in Iceland this is one of the cornerstones of the economy and fishing traditions run deep. Fishing companies are big hitters, with influence that extends far beyond the industry itself, into politics and the media. Iceland’s quota barons tend to have a real say in how the country is run.
It’s also right to point out that these allegations are just that. The process of investigating this complex web is just creaking into action. Nobody has been charged or has faced a judge, although that’s more than likely where all this will go – eventually.
But in the meantime there’s an appetite for some real answers, and for this whole issue to not be kicked into the long grass.
Photo of Walvis Bay by Sonse
Cover photo of Spes Nova UK-205, Damen Shipyards