Fishermen upset as $28M Carenage facility going to ruin - Trinidad Guardian

SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

The pun­gent smell of fae­ces waft­ed through the $28 mil­lion Care­nage Fish­ing Cen­tre last Wednes­day.

It was af­ter 12.30 pm and fish­er­men at the state-of-the-art fa­cil­i­ty were not eat­ing their lunch but hold­ing their breaths from the of­fen­sive odour that per­me­at­ed from an un­cov­ered sew­er treat­ment plant.

Since last year, the aw­ful scent has been dis­rupt­ing the op­er­a­tions of more than 100 fish­er­men who use the fa­cil­i­ty that was opened by Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley al­most five years ago.

On June 9, 2018, Row­ley com­mis­sioned the cen­tre, lo­cat­ed on the West­ern Main Road, Care­nage, which falls in his Diego Mar­tin West con­stituen­cy.

De­liv­er­ing the fea­ture ad­dress, Row­ley de­scribed the cen­tre as an ex­pen­sive project and urged its users to keep it clean since the fa­cil­i­ty was a gift from the peo­ple of T&T.

The PM al­so ac­cused the for­mer Peo­ple’s Part­ner­ship gov­ern­ment of leav­ing the fa­cil­i­ty to rot dur­ing their 2010 to 2015 term in of­fice, as the site had been van­dalised, pil­fered and oc­cu­pied by squat­ters.

In all, it took al­most nine years to com­plete the cen­tre, which was built by the Ur­ban De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion of T&T and man­aged by the Min­istry of Agri­cul­ture, Land and Fish­eries.

Fresh fish is sold dai­ly by fish­er­men to ven­dors at the cen­tre.

Care­nage Fish­ing As­so­ci­a­tion PRO Randy Quin­tero be­lieves the cen­tre was the best thing the Gov­ern­ment could have pro­vid­ed to the com­mu­ni­ty, whose life­line and lifeblood is fish­ing. But al­most five years af­ter its open­ing, the fa­cil­i­ty has faced a myr­i­ad of is­sues.

Quin­tero said days af­ter Row­ley cut the rib­bon, the prop­er­ty flood­ed af­ter a heavy down­pour.

“About three times af­ter that the cen­tre came un­der­wa­ter,” he said.

The cen­tre is equipped with wash­rooms, a re­tail and whole­sale area, 80 lock­ers for fish­er­men, a net re­pair zone, park­ing spaces, ice-mak­ing ma­chines and a des­ig­nat­ed lo­ca­tion for fish­er­men to re­pair their boats.

Fast track five years af­ter its com­mis­sion­ing and Quin­tero, who has been a fish­er­man for decades, says the mul­ti-mil­lion dol­lar fa­cil­i­ty is be­ing ne­glect­ed. He said the fish­er­men have been putting up with a lot—rang­ing from non-work­ing toi­lets, steal­ing of items and an aw­ful smell while con­duct­ing busi­ness.

“The prob­lems seem to be nev­er-end­ing,” Quin­tero said.

Quin­tero high­light­ed an opened sew­er treat­ment plant which has been giv­ing off an un­bear­able stench since last year af­ter it be­gan mal­func­tion­ing. He said a crew was called in to re­pair it but in open­ing the two cov­ers of the plant, the work­men dam­aged one.

“It was nev­er fixed or re­placed. So, night and day we have to in­hale the smell of fae­ces em­a­nat­ing from the plant. Is months we putting up with this stink odour. It’s un­bear­able now. This is a se­ri­ous health haz­ard to the fish­er­men.”

Quin­tero al­so showed sew­er wa­ter drain­ing from the plant on­to a strip of con­crete and cours­ing its way in­to the near­by beach, where adults and chil­dren fre­quent­ly bathe.

“They are obliv­i­ous to what is go­ing on. I am sure where they are bathing there is bac­te­ria in the wa­ter.”

Not far from the plant, Quin­tero lift­ed an alu­mini­um grill to show a choked un­der­ground drain where fish rem­nants and blood had set­tled.

“We have to deal with this stink smell too.”

Above the drain is where the fish­er­men clean their catch of the day.

“Is I and oth­er fish­er­men does have to clean this when it starts to smell up the place,” he said, rais­ing his hands in frus­tra­tion.

The cen­tre has no jan­i­tors.

He said parts from one of two ice-mak­ing ma­chines on the com­pound were al­so stolen while se­cu­ri­ty guards worked around the clock.

“It have se­cu­ri­ty guards and things are still go­ing miss­ing. And is not no small parts.”

Quin­tero said three times fish­er­men beat va­grants who pil­fered from the fa­cil­i­ty.

“We don’t tol­er­ate steal­ing here.”

He al­so com­plained that the two toi­lets the fish­er­men have been non-func­tion­al for months. The toi­lets, he said, had be­come a free for all and a pub­lic wash­room be­fore this.

“Is every Tom, Dick and Har­ry us­ing it. Every­body in Care­nage tell them­selves the cen­tre is a Gov­ern­ment build­ing so they could leave their house in the morn­ing and come here to use the toi­let... and when you tell them to clean it, they in­form­ing you that is the Gov­ern­ment place and it’s for the peo­ple in Care­nage.”

He added, “Every­body in the com­mu­ni­ty have guns. You feel I could tell a man not to use the toi­let? I have to keep my mouth shut. Now is we who suf­fer­ing.”

When the fa­cil­i­ty swung open its doors, Quin­tero said there were ini­tial­ly three peo­ple re­spon­si­ble for clean­ing and up­keep of the build­ing but they on­ly dealt with part of the fa­cil­i­ty.

“And then they stopped clean­ing the back of the build­ing where the fish­er­men would op­er­ate. They made us to un­der­stand that they were in­struct­ed to clean on­ly the front of the build­ing where cus­tomers would buy fish. So, who have to main­tain in the back here?” he asked.

“Miss is I, my sons and one or two fish­er­men have been clean­ing this place for the last three years. This is ridicu­lous, man. Un­ac­cept­able.”

Quin­tero ad­mit­ted the fish­er­men no longer pay a month­ly rent of $300 to store their fish­ing equip­ment in cu­bi­cles.

“We ain’t pay­ing no mon­ey again be­cause you see what go­ing on here.”

De­scrib­ing the fa­cil­i­ty as one of the best in the coun­try, Quin­tero said it pains to see it be­ing ne­glect­ed and not main­tained.

“The Gov­ern­ment spent a tonne of mon­ey on the fa­cil­i­ty and just for­get about it. It is slow­ly falling in­to ru­ins. What is the sense you build­ing a mil­lion-dol­lar fa­cil­i­ty and you can’t main­tain it? That mak­ing any sense? I tired see peo­ple from var­i­ous Gov­ern­ment de­part­ments come here and look at the prob­lems af­fect­ing the fish­er­men and do noth­ing. It’s like our plight is falling on deaf ears.”

Con­tact­ed on the is­sue, Na­tion­al Agri­cul­tur­al Mar­ket­ing De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion (NAMDE­V­CO) CEO Nir­mal­la De­bysingh con­firmed that the cen­tre is in a tran­si­tion­al phase. She said the Agri­cul­ture Min­istry is in the process of hand­ing over the fa­cil­i­ty to NAMDE­V­CO.

“So, we are not sole­ly tran­si­tioned as yet.”

While ad­mit­ting the fa­cil­i­ty has some prob­lems - main­ly the un­cov­ered sew­er treat­ment plant, De­bysingh could not give a time frame as to when the prob­lem will be rec­ti­fied.

“I am not at lib­er­ty to say any­thing right now. I an­swer to a board of di­rec­tors. I take in­struc­tions from my board. We will de­cide what has to be done,” she said.

The T&T Guardian al­so What­sApped Agri­cul­ture Min­is­ter Kaz­im Ho­sein out­lin­ing the is­sues af­fect­ing the fish­er­men but did not get a re­sponse.

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Fishermen upset as $28M Carenage facility going to ruin - Trinidad Guardian
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