Kevon Felmine

Se­nior Re­porter

kevon.felmine@guardian.co.tt

Dis­ap­point­ment and frus­tra­tion filled the air at King’s Wharf, San Fer­nan­do, on Thurs­day, as fish­er­men and boat own­ers ar­rived at the long-await­ed fish­ing fa­cil­i­ty—on­ly to find it still un­der con­struc­tion.

For months, they have been un­able to work, their ves­sels strand­ed since Ju­ly 15, 2024, af­ter the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny of Trinidad and To­ba­go (Ude­cott) filled in the beach­front where they were once moored. The Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries (MALF) had as­sured them of a par­tial fa­cil­i­ty open­ing, rais­ing hopes that they could fi­nal­ly re­turn to sea. But when they ar­rived Thurs­day, their op­ti­mism quick­ly turned to anger. Con­struc­tion work­ers were still on-site, with plumb­ing and elec­tri­cal in­stal­la­tions un­fin­ished.

San Fer­nan­do Fish­ing Co­op­er­a­tive So­ci­ety pres­i­dent Bob­by Sook­lals­ingh said he re­ceived word at 2.30 pm on Wednes­day that the min­istry would hand over the fa­cil­i­ty to them, al­low­ing par­tial oc­cu­pa­tion. But when the fish­er­men turned up, they were met with a stark re­al­i­ty—their des­ig­nat­ed area was not ready.

Adding to their frus­tra­tion, site of­fi­cials barred them from en­ter­ing, cit­ing Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Safe­ty and Health Au­thor­i­ty (OS­HA) reg­u­la­tions. With­out per­son­al pro­tec­tive equip­ment, they were not al­lowed past the gates. Of­fi­cers from the Prae­di­al Lar­ce­ny Squad stood by, ob­serv­ing the tense stand­off.

“As you see for your­self, the jet­ty is in­com­plete. That is where we are sup­posed to an­chor. In the en­gine re­pair room, we do not have any ex­trac­tors there. If you are sand­ing a boat, there are no lights. The jet­ty has no poles, as you can see for your­self, and peo­ple are still work­ing,” Sook­lals­ingh said.

While Ude­cott com­pen­sat­ed the 64 fish­er­men and boat own­ers for their down­time, Sook­lals­ingh said the agree­ment promised fur­ther com­pen­sa­tion if the project ex­tend­ed be­yond Jan­u­ary 15. How­ev­er, he said there has been no com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the au­thor­i­ties on this mat­ter.

Vet­er­an fish­er­man Er­rol Ranghill ex­pressed sus­pi­cion that Ude­cott was rush­ing the work to avoid ad­di­tion­al pay­outs. But de­spite the hur­ried ef­forts, he said there were glar­ing de­fi­cien­cies—most no­tably, a crane in­stalled too low to safe­ly hoist boats out of the wa­ter. The fa­cil­i­ty al­so lacked ba­sic ameni­ties, in­clud­ing toi­let fa­cil­i­ties.

Adding to their con­cerns, Ranghill re­vealed that fish­er­men were hand­ed a li­a­bil­i­ty waiv­er, ab­solv­ing the au­thor­i­ties of re­spon­si­bil­i­ty for lost or dam­aged items.

“They are go­ing to ‘kill our genes from the wharf,’” Ranghill lament­ed, ex­plain­ing that the waiv­er on­ly asked for the name of a next of kin—some­one to clear out their lock­er and boat if any­thing hap­pened to them.

Fur­ther­more, he point­ed out a crit­i­cal flaw in the de­sign. Orig­i­nal­ly, the plan in­clud­ed a wave break­er to pro­tect boats, but with­out it, ves­sels are left vul­ner­a­ble to rough sea con­di­tions. The jet­ty it­self, he claimed, was built too high, seem­ing­ly de­signed for jet skis and yachts rather than fish­ing boats.

Ranghill, who has spent a life­time on the wa­ter, said the new fa­cil­i­ty feels like a move for the worse.

“Nor­mal­ly, where we were, you could have slept by your lock­er when you came in at night. Where they brought us, you can­not do that. They tell you they do not want any­body stay­ing on the com­pound, but if some­body breaks in and steals, you have to pay for the dam­aged door. If you lose your en­gine, they are not com­pen­sat­ing you. So, this is what we are faced with this morn­ing.”

More than just a place to dock their boats, the wharf rep­re­sents a way of life—a lega­cy passed down through gen­er­a­tions. But with the cur­rent con­di­tions, Ranghill fears this tra­di­tion will die out.

“If a fish­er­man can­not put his son to con­tin­ue his lega­cy, it is the killing of a gen­er­a­tion. It is noth­ing for us; every­thing is for them. It is as if we gave up where we were born and raised to come here and rent,” Ranghill said.

Among the fish­er­men, there is grow­ing un­ease that their stay at the fa­cil­i­ty will be tem­po­rary and that au­thor­i­ties may even­tu­al­ly force them out al­to­geth­er.

Con­tact­ed for a re­sponse on the is­sue, Ude­cott said in a state­ment that the jet­ty was avail­able for use from Thurs­day, while the en­tire project will be hand­ed over to the MALF in Feb­ru­ary.

It said MALF, as client, was aware of all mat­ters re­lat­ed to the progress of the project and its readi­ness for oc­cu­pa­tion and use by the fish­er­men.

“The work to be com­plet­ed will not be ham­pered by the fish­er­men’s use of the jet­ty,” Ude­cott said.

It said the old fish­ing fa­cil­i­ty had to be de­cant­ed but there was a de­lay in the fish­er­men re­mov­ing their boats from the premis­es to al­low the con­struc­tion to start, which de­layed the project by three months.

Re­gard­ing the com­plaints about the suit­abil­i­ty of the fa­cil­i­ty, Ude­cott said there were nu­mer­ous con­sul­ta­tions with the fish­er­men, who signed off on the de­sign of the fa­cil­i­ty.