. The Marine and Coastal Management (MCM) awarded tenders for the processing, marketing, selling and exporting of abalone to three service providers at different tariffs. During the period October 2006 to August 2007, the total actual costs (as invoiced by the three service providers) for processing, marketing, selling and exporting of 173 794 kg of wet abalone amounted to R 7.1 million. If all the costs and invoices were based on the cost structure as per the MoA with the service provider who had the lowest tariff structure, the total would have been R 5.3 million.