Fishermen and members of the public using the Otaheite Fishing Facility can expect improvement works on the compound from as early as next week.
This as Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Ravi Ratiram toured the facility on Saturday, describing it as deplorable, amid complaints from fishermen over its state.
With fishermen facing issues including no electricity at the Otaheite Fishing Facility, Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Ravi Ratiram says he will put together a team from his ministry to address the problems as soon as next week.
Minister Ratiram toured the facility along with the ministry’s Chief Technical Officer Dr. Michelle Mellows and fisher folk from the area.
Speaking with the media, he said the facility is in a deplorable state, something he intends to have rectified from as early as Monday morning.
“I’m happy that this Chief Technical Officer is here with me this morning. And we are going to put together a team from the Ministry of Hybrid Organic Resources, from our engineering unit, to scope these works, to basically document what is required, find necessary funding and see how best we can work closely with our councillor, with our fishing association, to address the concerns that we have seen here this morning.”
The minister said the permanent secretary in the ministry will be tasked with identifying how funding can be acquired to address the current issues, which, if left unchecked, can pose serious safety hazards for the fishermen and the public.
“From what I understand, the electricity has also been cut to the facilities, having the facilities in the dark, the fish are caught out of the area, the 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. Since the health and safety has done, it’s a security risk at the end of the day. So we are going to do this with utmost urgency to see how best we can bring about some solutions to the challenges of the fishing association.”
Miniter Ratiram said there are other facilities in South Trinidad which face maintenance challenges including the San Fernando Fishing Depot and the Grand Chemmere facility.
He said repairs at those other facilities are a work in progress.