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RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@

guardian.co.tt

It’s been three weeks since the cur­few has been im­posed and fish­er­men across south Trinidad say they can no longer sus­tain their fam­i­lies.

Pres­i­dent of the San Fer­nan­do Fish­ing Co­op­er­a­tive Sal­im Gool, who had pre­dict­ed a fish short­age sev­er­al weeks ago, said they were not hold­ing catch dur­ing the day.

He said many fish­er­men were re­luc­tant to fish at nights be­cause they had no cur­few pass.

Gool said be­cause of a de­cline in fish­ing, the price of fish had sky­rock­et­ed in re­cent times.

“A buck­et of her­ring which usu­al­ly sold for $60 at Kings Wharf, San Fer­nan­do, is now be­ing sold for $300,” Gool said.

He added, “We heard that fish­er­men are es­sen­tial work­ers but we still have to ap­ply for a cur­few pass. Which fish­er­man knows how to go about do­ing that. Fish­er­men in lim­bo right now be­cause we can­not feed our fam­i­lies,” Gool said.

Mean­while in Ce­dros, fish­er­man Rakesh Ram­dass said since this cur­few start­ed, he has been find­ing it dif­fi­cult to pay his loan.

“I try work­ing day­light and noth­ing hold­ing. I sold about $300 but I have to buy back gas. I bare­ly mak­ing any­thing and it re­al­ly hard. I hope they could do some­thing to help us, fish­er­men,” Ram­dass said.

He ex­plained that most of the fish­ing was done at nights and it was a waste of time and gas to go fish­ing dur­ing the day.

Mean­while, coun­cil­lor for Oth­a­hei­ta/Rousil­lac Javed Mo­hammed said he has been try­ing to as­sist the fam­i­lies of fish­er­men who live at Ota­haite Bay and Cof­fee Street, La Brea.

“We have a lot of fish­er­men re­sid­ing in that area. Since the SoE came in­to ef­fect, fish­er­men have been suf­fer­ing. Any av­er­age per­son who goes fish­ing will un­der­stand that cer­tain types of fish they will catch in the bay at cer­tain hours and if the fish­er­men miss that time pe­ri­od, they will lose catch,” Mo­hammed said. He ex­plained that over 450 ham­pers have been dis­trib­uted over the past five weeks to needy peo­ple in the com­mu­ni­ty, in­clud­ing the fam­i­lies of fish­er­men.

Last week, Com­mis­sion­er of Po­lice Gary Grif­fith told Guardian Me­dia the fish­er­men could ap­ply for a cur­few pass to ply their trade. Each re­quest will be dealt with on a case-by-case ba­sis,” he said.