Fisherman slams oil spill payout as unfair

Lam­beau fish­er­man Ed­win Ramkissoon says he lost every­thing in last year’s oil spill—his boat, en­gine, and gear—but re­ceived the same com­pen­sa­tion as fish­er­men who were bare­ly af­fect­ed.

Ramkissoon says his ves­sel Fish­er of Men re­mained stuck in oil for days af­ter the 7 Feb­ru­ary 2024 spill. He couldn’t fish, his en­gine stopped work­ing, and his gear was ru­ined.

But when cheques were dis­trib­uted last week, Ramkissoon was stunned to re­ceive on­ly 40 per­cent of his claim—the same pro­por­tion as oth­ers who had still been able to go to sea.

“His 40 per­cent give me ap­prox­i­mate­ly $60,000 in as­sis­tance,” he said, adding that oth­ers re­ceived cheques of over $100,000 for the same 40 per­cent.

In 2024, the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) al­lo­cat­ed $2 mil­lion to as­sist af­fect­ed fish­er­men while they await fi­nal ap­proval of their claims from the In­ter­na­tion­al Oil Pol­lu­tion Com­pen­sa­tion (IOPC) Fund.

But Ramkissoon be­lieves favouritism taint­ed the process.

“Es­pe­cial­ly like for my case, I was bad­ly af­fect­ed. You’re sup­posed to deal with me dif­fer­ent­ly. That is what I thought they would have done, you un­der­stand? Be­cause oth­er fish­er­men was go­ing to sea. I could not go. Every day I com­ing down and watch­ing my boat in the oil… my boat could have be­come a swamp, be­cause I couldn’t go out to the boat,” he said.

Ramkissoon says he sub­mit­ted re­ceipts, quo­ta­tions, and years of fish­ing records—but no one vis­it­ed or called to ver­i­fy his claim.

He says he typ­i­cal­ly earns up to $40,000 a month and es­ti­mates he lost more than $78,000 in in­come and equip­ment. The $63,000 he re­ceived, he said, feels like a dis­re­spect af­ter wait­ing over a year for help.

“This $63,501.50… I am not com­fort­able, not com­fort­able at all. This is dis­sat­is­fy­ing. This is our ad­van­tage this. I don’t like this at all. I talk in my mind and my heart. I’m not com­fort­able with this. For a fish­er­man who from Lam­bo on the beach and the oil come in and reach him, I not sup­pose to ac­cept this.”

Ramkissoon says the pay­out will help him re­pair the boat—but not re­place what was lost. He be­lieves com­pen­sa­tion should re­flect re­al dam­age, not blan­ket es­ti­mates.

“Deal with peo­ple fair,” he said. “Have a heart for peo­ple.”