Fishermen entangle by Covid-19 chokhold struggles to stay afloat

Boats moored at the No. 79 Foreshore Corentyne Berbice 

A number of fisher folks in the Berbice area are fighting to keep their heads above water economically as the strain of the coronavirus restrictions on fishing activities, like in many other sectors continues to bite.

Pameshwar Jainarine, Chairman of the Upper Corentyne Fishermen Coop Society in an interview with BIG Smith News Watch that the society has one hundred boats which are licensed to operate in Suriname waters but since the COVID-19 restrictions, those boats have not been heading there.

Chairman of the Co-Op Society Pameshwar Jainarine

Added to that, fisher folks and boats licensed to operate in Guyanese waters are being chased pout of the river by patrols boats of Suriname which are also overlapping their patrolling activities in Guyana waters.

Jainarine in his interview with BIG Smith News Watch mentioned that recently two boats from Guyana were seized by the Surinamese patrol boats which were also damaged in the process costing damage to both of the Guyanese vessels amounting to more than five million dollars.

Boat captain Orvin Harripersaud

“All they could have done was turn back the boats and tell them to not come back or something and we would have seen what to do from there. Right now we have a number of boats that fish exclusively in Guyana waters and we have 100 that are licensed to fish in Surinamese water but those 100 boats do not go out to sea at this point” the Co-op head told BIG Smith News Watch

Hundreds of persons along the Corentyne coast and Berbice depend on fishing activities directly or indirectly as a way of life and means of survival, many of whom have allowed the activities to become their primary skills of earning for themselves and families.

The number of men currently directly out of employment due to this temporary lockdown due to the coronavirus stands at about eight hundred, many of whom lead families.

It is almost three months that fisher folks and other categories and workers and professions are unable to return to full-scale operations in an effort to minimize the instances of social gathering in order to slow the spread of coronavirus.

Orvin Harripersaud a boat captain, indicated that the current restrictions in-keeping with the coronavirus have been affecting his ability to effectively earn and take care of his family. He explained that he has five workers and they too would from time to time show up at his premises requesting financial assistance for their families.

“Them workmen do come and ask me for money because I’m the boss but we ain’t getting no work, we ain’t getting to go fish and money don’t come so is all of us suffering”. He told BIG Smith News Watch 

BIG Smith News Watch questioned the head of the co-op society about the help if any that was offered to the fishermen since the pandemic started. He noted that none was given as the society is without funds owing to renovations which had to be done to a building and servicing of the icehouse. A one-time membership fee of GYD $ 25,000 is paid by members upon joining the co-op, we were told.

Fishermen liming at seashore unable to head out

The Government of Guyana has thus far placed restrictions on a number of activities since the initial coronavirus case and death. Since those restrictions were announced, the government returned on three other occasions and imposed extended restrictions.

President David Granger has recently announced that the country will be reopened to normal activities when the coronavirus cases are reduced to a level where it does not put the larger population at risk.