Mara­bel­la fish­er­men are call­ing on the au­thor­i­ties to com­pen­sate them for the loss of earn­ings due to the San Fer­nan­do King’s Wharf Wa­ter­front Restora­tion project.

Sev­er­al fish­er­men from San Fer­nan­do and Mara­bel­la voiced their con­cerns yes­ter­day as back­fill­ing works com­menced. How­ev­er, fish­er­man Ri­car­do Sinaswee com­plained that Mara­bel­la boat own­ers have been left out of the ne­go­ti­a­tions for com­pen­sa­tion and are call­ing on the au­thor­i­ties to in­clude them. 

He said they have been op­er­at­ing as fish­er­men at the port for over 20 years. 

Sinaswee said it was cost­ing the Mara­bel­la boat own­ers more mon­ey to run their ves­sels dai­ly. 

Ac­cord­ing to an of­fi­cial of the San Fer­nan­do Fish­ing As­so­ci­a­tion, the San Fer­nan­do fish­er­men agreed to move 64 ves­sels out of the Gulf of Paria by Ju­ly 15 to al­low works by the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of Trinidad and To­ba­go at San Fer­nan­do King’s Wharf for the Wa­ter­front Restora­tion Project. Re­quest­ing anonymi­ty, the of­fi­cial said 14 ves­sels had been moved al­ready. 

Guardian Me­dia was told that the agree­ment be­tween the San Fer­nan­do boat own­ers and the Min­istry of Plan­ning and De­vel­op­ment is to com­pen­sate them $600 a day for 30 days a month. 

The of­fi­cial claimed Ude­cott of­fi­cials told them they are try­ing to quick­en the pay­ment process and they should get some an­swers next week. 

He claimed some­one from Ude­cott met with them and gave them the op­tion to sign doc­u­men­ta­tion agree­ing to re­move all their ap­pa­ra­tus from the wa­ters. 

But, Sinaswee ar­gued that Mara­bel­la fish­er­men were left out of the agree­ments and they want­ed to be com­pen­sat­ed.

“The wharf is the on­ly lo­ca­tion for us to sell fish; is $200 to just come and try to sell we fish. Is $200 to $400 every day as an ad­di­tion­al ex­pense since they start­ed works to re­fur­bish the wharf. But they on­ly com­pen­sate the San Fer­nan­do fish­er­men, but we fall un­der San Fer­nan­do even though we have a dif­fer­ent num­ber for we boat.

“The pipe they have ex­tend­ed out in­to the wa­ter is a longer dis­tance to reach around to get to the wharf.  Is 50 or more homes af­fect­ed by this from Mara­bel­la with chil­dren, book list and some­times we don’t know where we next meal com­ing from. We wasn’t promised that mon­ey al­lo­ca­tion. And that is un­fair to we,” Sinaswee com­plained.

How­ev­er, the as­so­ci­a­tion of­fi­cial said the au­thor­i­ty had been do­ing its best and ap­proved 50 fam­i­lies to ben­e­fit from the re­lo­ca­tion.

He added, “They haven’t re­ceived the pay­ment, they on­ly signed to re­move all the ves­sels from the wa­ter to do the project. Is eight days since we sign. Right now it pro­cess­ing. I talk to the Ude­cott peo­ple this morn­ing and by next week we are ex­pect­ed to col­lect the mon­ey.

“For the res­i­dents liv­ing on the wharf, Land Set­tle­ment peo­ple passed and filled out forms for who is liv­ing there and who not liv­ing there. Some al­ready get their hous­es. Boat own­ers sign le­gal doc­u­ments. They told them that on 12 Ju­ly and by the 15 of Ju­ly to re­move nets and ap­pa­ra­tus be­cause they go­ing to do back­fill­ing.”

He said the Land Set­tle­ment Agency was in the process of dis­trib­ut­ing homes and two fam­i­lies had al­ready been re­lo­cat­ed. He said the boat own­ers with one-room struc­tures on the wharf were al­so giv­en the op­tion to move. 

How­ev­er, some res­i­dents al­so ex­pressed their dis­sat­is­fac­tion with the in­flux of ma­chin­ery op­er­at­ing in the area while they were still there. Yes­ter­day, some who asked not to be named, com­plained of rup­tured sew­er pipes, dis­con­nect­ed elec­tric­i­ty and in­ter­net lines, and a heavy pres­ence of dust in the area. 

Con­tact­ed for a com­ment on the com­plaints by fish­er­men and res­i­dents, Ude­cott’s Cor­po­rate Com­mu­ni­ca­tions Man­ag­er Rox­anne Sta­ple­ton-Whyms said the com­pa­ny will be look­ing in­to the mat­ter.