Over a year and five months after the opening of a $30 million Artisanal Fisheries Complex in Barbuda, strong concerns remain that the majority of fishermen continue to shun the facility.
At the opening of the facility in August, 2011, agriculture minister Hilson Baptiste declared it the single largest investment to take place in Barbuda.
But head of the Barbuda Fisherman’s Co-operative Devon Warner said now only around 30 of the estimated 100 fishermen in Barbuda make use of the facility.
It’s not a problem of the administration, I think it’s a problem of the fishermen not utilising what I consider to be a great gift, said Warner.
The intended purpose was to make the lives of the fishermen in Barbuda easier, processing whatever you have, icing and stuff like that, but it’s a very small percentage of the fishermen that use the place properly, he added.
The facility was meant to improve the efficiency of fishermen’s operations and ensure quality controls were in place so Barbuda could maximise on exports and meet international standards.
But Warner said most fishermen are reluctant to dock their boats at the fisheries and prefer to scale, clean and process the fish themselves rather than pass it on to the fisheries.
Fishermen who spoke to OBSERVER Media said the problem was that most fishermen had carried out the entire process themselves for so long that they were unwilling to change.
The fishermen are also said to be reluctant to pay fees for docking, locker rooms, and for the scaling, cleaning and processing of their fish, despite the charges being minimal.
The management of the complex is said to have lowered fees to encourage fishermen, but to no avail. One fisherman said he now pays $400 a year for the docking of two boats and the use of a locker.
The Barbuda fisheries complex contains a landing jetty, a mooring wharf, a slipway, an on-site road, a fish-handling shed, an administrative office building, an ice-making storage facility, a cold storage, a sanitised water reservoir tank for ice-making, a meeting room and sleeping quarters, among other features.
2013 Observer Publications Limited