Gov’t must be pressured to reverse the sea bob licences and permit for the processing facility

The launching of the Chinese sea food plant is indeed `More fishy tales’ (SN March 28) – an apt caption for the content of your informative editorial for a lack of transparency under which licences were granted for sea bob fishing as well as for the foreign owned processing plant. Thank you for this editorial. It is a necessary and a prompt, scathing critique of government’s policy on very fishy matters that will inevitably lead to overfishing in Guyana waters, resulting in fines if not banning of Guyanese trawlers in international waters. Our local fishing industry is under threat as a result of this new development. Local fishing may be forced out of business. Sustainable fishing that has been time honoured by Guyanese for centuries will in all likelihood be violated. The Grandeast processing plant, like the sea bob licence, raises a lot of questions that need answers. Something indeed smells fishy that needs fumigation for cleansing.

The sea bob licensing fiasco of last December and now the permit for the establishment of a foreign (Chinese) sea food (shrimp) processing facility are unacceptable. Are the two connected? Guyanese must resist both. It spells doom for our small local processing plants, with hundreds if not thousands of local jobs on the line. Guyanese must mount pressure on the government to reverse both the sea bob licence as well as the licensing permit for the processing facility. The government has violated its commitment to transparency.

The record will show that Fuzhou (based in China) already buys shrimps from Guyana. Several of our companies supply Fuzhou in China. Guyanese suppliers have been earning money (foreign currency) from exports and employing hundreds of local staff. Now Fuzhou opens its own facility and hires its own staff, no longer requiring local labour and putting Guyanese sea food processing facilities out of business. Jobs will inevitably be lost.

As the editorial correctly noted, Chinese trawlers are restricted from fishing in Caribbean waters and in America’s backyard. The US coast guard patrols the waters for overfishing. Where will the Chinese processing plant Grandeast get its fish? It can’t fish in our waters unless it has a local company as a proxy. Is there a local proxy? The Minister is tightlipped on this connection.

Grandeast needs large amounts of fish and shrimp that our trawlers can’t supply. We have reached our allowable internationally accepted limit for our local fishermen and we can’t even meet international demands of our markets in the USA and Europe and domestic consumption. So how are we going to supply the Chinese Grandeast? It is not practical unless Grandeast has a proxy that is fronting for Chinese. Will America allow the Chinese to fish in Guyana’s waters through a local proxy? Absolutely not and it must not. Rules must not be violated.

The Chinese Grandeast says it can process 40 tons or 180K pounds of catch per day. Only 225 days of fishing are allowed by international agreement. This means that Grandeast can process a maximum of 18M pounds of catch per year. All the local seafood processing plants combined barely scrape up 18M pounds annually at maximum catch. They don’t have fish and or shrimp enough to process. They can’t do any more fishing. So how will the local fisheries have surplus to supply the

Chinese Grandeast when the locals themselves can’t meet international demand?

The Minister of Agriculture (and Fisheries) is reported to have said that Guyanese facilities (West Demerara) don’t have enough market for our fish and shrimp. That is not factual. The opposite is true – they don’t have enough fish and shrimp to process because they have reached the maximum allowable catch. There is greater demand for fish and shrimp in North America and Europe. Guyana can’t meet demands. Local fishermen don’t have surplus fish for the Chinese. The Chinese are not known to follow international rules in waters where they fish in the Pacific. Will the same happen in the Atlantic or Guyana waters to meet Chinese demands? One should expect a lot of illegal, unregulated fishing. Maritime Stewardship Council sustainable fishing certification will be violated. Will the Guyana Government support the violation of fishing rules?

Mr. Rampersaud Sukdeo of La Jalousie has been granted a fishing licence. He claims he owns trawlers in Trinidad. No one in the fishing or trawler business knows him in Guyana or in Trinidad. Every trawler has a name and registration number. Is there any connected with Mr. Sukdeo at the Ministry of Agriculture or Fisheries in Guyana and or in Trinidad? If so, where and when was it registered? And as your editorial correctly asked, where are his trawlers moored? Government must come clean. Did government inspect the trawlers? Were licensing fees paid at GRA (Guyana) or in Trinidad? Is Guyana being disrespected for violation of its sovereignty?