Blows for fishermen as Corentyne River restrictions bite deep

Apr 20, 2020 News

– hundreds jobless

It has been over a month since Guyana has been on a semi-lockdown amid the Coronavirus pandemic.

Fishing Co-op Chairman: Pameshwar Jainarine

One of the industry badly hit with thousands affected is the fishing one.
Hundreds of fishermen have been unable to venture out to sea to fish in the Upper Corentyne areas as the water fall in Suriname area.
Kaieteur News was told that Suriname authorities, as part their COVID-19 measures, are not allowing fisher folk in the waters they patrol.
According to the Chairman of the Number 66 Fishing Co-op, Pameshwar Jainarine, “a lot of the fishermen are home and only a small fraction of the boats are going out to work and the very few that are going out at taking a chance to go out.”
He added that there are over a 150 fishing boats. The restrictions have been taking a devastating toll.
“The workers them are unable to work…pressure is being put on owners of fishing vessels because many of the fishermen come and ask for loans to support their families. Some of them worked with owners for years and so they are kinda obligated to them,” he explained.
The Chairman disclosed that they have since contacted the Chief Fisheries Officer highlighting the issues they have encountered.
“But there are two scenarios here. We from the 66 Co-op, as I said, a couple of us going out and fish in Guyana waters but there are members based at Number 79 Village and at Crabwood Creek…they cannot fish for over a month now so they deh more bad than we but they are still a part of the Co-op. We were also speaking to approach the Civil Defence Commission (CDC) for some sort of assistance after we saw they were distributing hampers.”
He pointed out that there has been no short or long-term assistance announced for fisher-folk since the crisis.
In addition to workers not being able to fish, the few that have taken their chances to venture out have not been finding lucrative markets to sell their catch.
In fact, it appears that vendors are not even finding the money to buy the fish.
“The consumers now are buying for a cheaper price from us. For example, snapper use to sell for $425 per pound and now it is $350 a pound. For the trout, we use to get $200 to $220 a pound, now we selling it for $160 a pound taking into consideration that less fishermen are working so it is really taking a toll on us.”
In the past, the fishing industry was overwhelmed with piracy attacks but this is an entirely new scenario that may batter the industry with no indications of how it will recover.
“It’s very frustrating. We as owners are also crying out and then when the workers come for assistance, we can’t even assist them as we would like because we have our own families to take care of. We don’t know how long this will last.”

Nothing doing: Boats moored at the Number 66 Fishing Complex, Corentyne

He noted that he has three fishing vessels but only one is working presently because there aren’t workers for the other two.
As if the restrictions are not enough, Jainarine disclosed that the exportation of fish has dropped drastically as well with less exporters buying.
Normally, there are several exporters buying fish to take to the United States and Jamaica.
It has dwindled down to one exporter from Georgetown buying.
He said that, “the industry has been neglected for a long time”.
“We don’t know who to turn to or who to ask or anything. We does have to fend for ourselves. Even in instances of piracy when you lose your expenses or property, nobody assist to get it back. There has been no sort of financial assistance from government.”
According to the official, the Co-op has only been able to assist with soft loans- provide fuel for the boats at the cost of the Co-op. Vessels are sent out with fishermen and whatever is sold they are given the opportunity to repay in parts for the fuel.
Jainarine added that the only positive thus far has been the drop in price for fuel.
“That has assisted a lot because we use a lot of fuel. A barrel of gas use to cost $60,000…now it come down to around $33,000.”
Jainarine believes that the fishing industry isn’t prepared for such a crisis with burning questions of what next.
They are appealing for assistance.