Members of the Rosignol Fisherman’s Co-op Society Limited yesterday protested in front of the co-op, calling for the removal of the chairman, and accusing him of causing the police to seize their engines.
Stabroek News learnt that on Monday morning, the police swooped on six fishermen as they were preparing to go out to sea and seized their engines. They said that when they questioned the officers, they were told that the police had received reports that the engines had been bought from “hijackers”.
The men were locked up at the Blairmont Police Station and then taken to the Fort Wellington station. They said they were released around 7 pm after paying $10,000 each.
According to them, they tried to convince the officers that their engines had been purchased legitimately and even produced receipts to this effect. Up to yesterday, the engines were still in custody at the Blairmont Station.
The fishers accused Chairman of the co-op Bisram Somwaru of making the false reports against them.
Somwaru vehemently denied the allegation. He said, “The raid was part of the Berbice Anti-piracy Campaign and if the police doing their investigations I don’t see how they could involve me.”
The fishers also acknowledged, “We know the police gat their work to do but after they match the serial numbers on the receipts and the engines they shoulda give we back we engines because we depend on that for we livelihood.”
Commander of ‘B’ Division/Assistant Commiss-ioner Clinton Conway, when contacted, told this newspaper that the police “received information that they [the fishermen] bought stolen articles.”
He confirmed that they produced receipts but said that Inspector David from the Fort Wellington Station had gone to Georgetown to verify whether the receipts were genuine. He said once this was proven, the men’s engines would be returned to them. He also made it clear that “the chairman did not give us any information.”
According to one fisherman, Latchman, the engines from his three boats – Shiva 1, Shiva 2 and Shiva 3 – were seized. He said he invested $85,000 in gas, ice and groceries for each boat and the ice has already started to melt.
He said 15 crewmembers, including the captains, depend on work with his boats and “they already tell me that if me don’t get back my engines by tomorrow [today] they would go out and seek other jobs.”
He said one of his engines that the police seized was hijacked sometime ago and was later recovered in Suriname. He said that even though the pirates had removed the serial number from the top of the engine, he was able to identify it from another hidden number.
The man said the original receipt for that engine was still with Suriname authorities but he provided the police with a copy. His wife Yasoda Latchman told this newspaper that Somwaru has copies of the receipts for the other two engines at the co-op, but at the time, she could not obtain them from him.
She said she returned home and uplifted the original receipts and the copy of the other one which she later gave to the police.
The protestors also said that instead of representing them the chairman was trying to “sink” them. They charged that the co-op was being run “under dictatorship because the chairman is acting to suit himself and not the people”.
Neeranie Kadir told this newspaper that her husband, a member of the co-op for the past three years, operates a Chinese seine and works “double time”.
She said the fish used to be left in the icebox to spoil so she decided to sell them at the fisheries. But, recently, she said, she was prevented from entering the compound. “I have three children going to school and this is affecting me a lot.”
According to Alimoon Mohamed, her husband, who is a major buyer, is paying fishermen a higher price for their fish than Somwaru. She alleged that because of that her husband was ordered to park his truck outside the compound and thieves removed two batteries from the truck worth $27,000.
Another woman, Raywattie Boodram said she has been a member of the fish complex for over ten years and that all the members were supposed to pay $5 for a pound of ice.
But she said that from December 23 the chairman insisted that she pay $6 per pound, while the persons who supply him continue to pay $5.
Asked about this, Somwaru said she was asked to pay $6 because “she is a huckster, not a boat owner”.
Ex-chairman of the co-op, Harry Ramnarine, who is one of the three major buyers, said since the present chairman took over he has been “deemed a non-member and I don’t know why. A lot of things go on at this complex that we do not like
