Law Enforcement and Peace Officer (LEPO) training is now underway at the DAFF Fisheries Management Branch in Cape Town following a cash injection of R50m from the Norwegian embassy to tackle fish crime in South African waters. The funding will be distributed over three years.
Training began last week with officials in the Marine Anti-Poaching Project. The Fisheries Crime Law Enforcement Academy was established at Nelson Mandela University (NMU) in 2015 and will offer short learning programmes on fisheries law enforcement.
LEPO is offered on NQF level 4 for non-matric officials and NQF level 5 for matric candidates. The training is fully accredited and credits obtained during the short learning modules can be accumulated towards a higher certificate and diploma. All Fishery Control Officers will be attending the training, irrespective of their current qualification level.
Advocate Phil Snijman, a former official in the Chief Directorate: Monitoring Compliance and Surveillance (MCS), the law enforcement arm of the Fisheries Branch is one of the facilitators with a plethora of knowledge and experience in the Marine Living Resources Act, the guiding mandate for MCS.
The tailor-made training addressing the gaps of formal training in the Chief Directorate comes in the wake of no formal certificates to address the training needs of MCS.
‘The amount of interest received indicates that people are ready to be trained and qualified. We are looking at training young people inland as well as coastal areas in order to widen our reach as well as strengthen our initiatives. We are looking forward to the increasing list of partnerships as we wish to reiterate our message of gratitude to the Norwegians,’ said Fatima Savel, acting director of Monitoring Control and Surveillance and also Deputy Director, Skills Development Training and Awareness.
The training will be facilitated in a structured manner with an assessment examination. All training modules and materials are produced by the Nelson Mandela University (NMU).
