Ratiram promises urgent repairs to Otaheite Fishing Facility

Sascha Wil­son

Se­nior Re­porter

sascha.wil­[email protected]

Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries Min­is­ter Ravi Rati­ram has promised to re­fur­bish the Ota­heite Fish­ing Fa­cil­i­ty, with ef­forts to re­store elec­tric­i­ty set to be­gin to­day while fund­ing is se­cured for ma­jor re­pairs.

The min­is­ter made the com­mit­ment af­ter meet­ing fish­er­folk and tour­ing the fa­cil­i­ty in south Trinidad. Fish­er­folk com­plained about the de­plorable state of the fa­cil­i­ty, cit­ing di­lap­i­dat­ed roofs, the ab­sence of elec­tric­i­ty, lack of cold stor­age and func­tion­ing wash­room fa­cil­i­ties, and a dan­ger­ous slip­way.

Clement Charles, pres­i­dent of the Ota­heite Red Brick Trace Fish­er­folk As­so­ci­a­tion, said fish­er­folk had been ne­glect­ed for the past ten years and that the fa­cil­i­ty was in ur­gent need of up­grades that would im­prove liveli­hoods and ben­e­fit the wider com­mu­ni­ty.

Speak­ing with re­porters af­ter the tour, Rati­ram said ma­jor re­fur­bish­ment works were nec­es­sary as the fa­cil­i­ty had been aban­doned over the last decade and was now in a de­plorable con­di­tion.

He said a team from the min­istry’s en­gi­neer­ing unit would con­duct an as­sess­ment to de­ter­mine the scope of works and iden­ti­fy fund­ing, while work­ing close­ly with the Siparia Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion and the fish­er­folk as­so­ci­a­tion.

How­ev­er, he said Chief Tech­ni­cal Of­fi­cer Dr Michelle Mel­lows, who al­so par­tic­i­pat­ed in the tour, would meet with the Per­ma­nent Sec­re­tary to iden­ti­fy fund­ing for emer­gency works, which are ex­pect­ed to be­gin to­day.

“From what I un­der­stand, the elec­tric­i­ty has al­so been cut to the fa­cil­i­ties, leav­ing them in dark­ness. Fish­er­men leave in the night to go out and make a tide, so we need to have lights. We need to have prop­er lights at the start. It is a health and safe­ty haz­ard and a se­cu­ri­ty risk at the end of the day. We are go­ing to treat this with the ut­most ur­gency to see how best we can bring about some so­lu­tions,” Rati­ram said.

Fish ven­dor Rishi Ram­roop and fish­er­man Ke­ta­ma Hen­ry al­so raised con­cerns about re­stric­tions on li­cences to ex­port cut­lass fish to Chi­na. They said cut­lass fish is con­sid­ered a pest with­in the lo­cal fish­ing in­dus­try and ham­pers fish­ing pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.

As­sur­ing that the re­stric­tions would be re­viewed, Rati­ram said he had in­struct­ed his ad­vis­ers to gath­er da­ta re­lat­ing to trade and ex­port lev­els, as well as the im­pact of cut­lass fish on oth­er fish pop­u­la­tions.

“From our in­ves­ti­ga­tions, it is clear there is no lo­cal de­mand for cut­lass fish. The fish­ing com­mu­ni­ty con­sid­ers it a pest be­cause it eats the oth­er fish and af­fects the spawn­ing bank,” he said.

How­ev­er, the min­is­ter stressed that any de­ci­sions would have to be based on sci­en­tif­ic da­ta.

Rati­ram al­so said the min­istry was work­ing to ad­dress chal­lenges at the San Fer­nan­do Fish­ing Fa­cil­i­ty to make it op­er­a­tional.

“There were a lot of mishaps in the ac­tu­al de­sign and ex­e­cu­tion of the fa­cil­i­ty,” he said, adding that Ude­cott was work­ing close­ly with the San Fer­nan­do Fish­ing As­so­ci­a­tion to ad­dress the con­cerns.

Re­gard­ing the Gran Chemin Fish­ing Fa­cil­i­ty, an­oth­er mul­ti-mil­lion-dol­lar project that has re­mained non-func­tion­al for more than a year, Rati­ram not­ed that the site lacked both a slip­way and a jet­ty.

He said some work had al­ready been com­plet­ed and ef­forts were un­der­way to make fu­el more ac­ces­si­ble to fish­er­folk as au­thor­i­ties work to­wards op­er­a­tional­is­ing the fa­cil­i­ty.

The min­is­ter added that con­sul­ta­tions with stake­hold­ers had been con­duct­ed through­out the coun­try and sub­mis­sions had been made for fund­ing in the up­com­ing mid-year re­view and the next fis­cal year.