Fishermen working from the Rosignol wharf are calling for President Irfaan Ali’s intervention in ensuring that immediate repairs are carried out on it, since they are claiming that the interim management team which was set up in 2019 has failed to do anything and it is currently in a poor state.
Additionally, several security guards complain-ed that management has failed to pay them since March.
The fishermen pointed out to Stabroek News that there are major holes in the wharf which is unsafe for them presently. However, they emphasised that they are continuing to use the wharf since fishing is their only source of income.
The men complained that the wharf poses a serious danger since sections can collapse at any time. Also, they informed that the pathway leading to the wharf is currently in a deplorable condition while some areas are not sanitary enough for fish to be kept.
Fisherman, Raymond Nazradeen, 50, explained, that the Rosignol Fisher-men’s Co-op used to manage the wharf and all other infrastructure in the compound. However, in 2019 they wrote a letter to the Deputy Chief Co-op Offi-cer requesting that they were in need of assistance since they had some issues with committee members.
He added, “Miss Gibbs bring a team and said look these are the people who will be in charge of the co-op, an interim body for six months. They take over with $2.5 million in the bank plus other money. We were doing reasonably well but after two years now we have $80,000 in the co-op. How can we develop back this co-op?”
Nazradeen stressed, “This place might look old and so but it’s a life string, it brings food to people. We cannot work and we have no money to build the wharf right now, all we can do now is ask the government to look into it because the interim body is still there, we (members) make no decision there.”
The man pointed out that boat owners are paying $5,000 to dock one boat at the wharf, while the interim body is also receiving $300,000 rent per month from the ice factory in the compound.
Based on information gathered, the new chief co-op officer two weeks ago visited the co-op where she looked at the situation. “We heard she asked for receipts on how the money spend and then suddenly we hear the manager and the chairman quit,” the fisherman said.
Anil Denanauth, 39, who has been a fisherman for 27 years, said, “We need this place to make up so that fisherman could benefit because look at the wharf condition. We just need for the place to make up, if the government can look into the matter and see to assist because fisherman life in danger. If you pass through that wharf and something happen to you and you can’t work, you na get no benefit hay so to collect and we get children and wife to mine, we just want to see what the best them can do.”
Sheriff Omar, 49, who has been a fisherman since he was 14 years old, said, “This place a go down every day, every day. When the chairman supposed to resign they supposed to keep a meeting with the fisherman. Them na inform nobody that he resign. Even the manager, nobody na know when them stop work, all the upstairs lock and so everything right now.”
Omar said that previously, when the interim body was asked to produce a record to the fishermen indicating how the monies were being spent since no repairs were being done, they strongly refused. “Them na show no record, we does go up and them na show no record,” he claimed.
He echoed, “This, anytime it can fall down and when it fall down all abbay a go mudflat. We want the government step in to this thing.”
April payments
Meanwhile, security guards attached at the location are also in a state of frustration as they claim they are owed April payments and were then told that they should not work if they cannot wait on their payments.
According to Omar, the interim manager had recently informed them that they would have to secure their own security as well.
Deodat Gildharie, 61, who has been a security guard for 21 years at the location, said that he is owed payments for the month of April. According to the man, they were informed in 2019 that they would have to take instructions from the interim body which would be present for six months to assist the co-op with becoming more “efficient”.
“Six months gone and they are still here but in 2020 February we start to experience that our pay coming late. We does get pay every fortnight and then it start fall back and fall back and then when we start to speak out for our salary we have victimisation from the management,” he explained.
After the six security guards complained, they were given a notice which read “To securities that didn’t receive payment as yet. Please be informed that payment for the first fortnight for March, 2021 would hold until further notice.”
However, after the security withheld their services at the end of March, a woman employed as the cleaner was moved up to guarding the compound.
The cleaner-turned-guard, Sharmila, said that she is owed $13,000 from April and has received no payment from May 1 – May 15. “When I come in Monday they said they have no salary and I call a strike and they said they have no pay but they say let we continue to work they gonna see what they doing for the security so we continue to work without payment.”
Sharmila added that she and three others “watchman millions of dollars right now” and yet she cannot receive payment. “If anything lost nobody will sorry for us, I will have to go to the lock up, so I calling on the minister and the president to see we have we pay by rights.”
The woman stated that she is a mother of three and is forced to continue working in hopes of receiving some payment. “I am a poor woman and I can’t sit down… I have water, internet, phone bills to pay.”
The fishermen and the security guards are pleading with government to look into the situation and intervene immediately. They believe that if the co-op is managed by its members as was previously the case, then improvements can be made for the benefit of all working at the location.
