‘Bring the money’

“I will encourage the private sector to get involved in helping to run these (fisheries) centres...
In Kingstown (St Vincent’s capital), I had asked the Chamber of Industry and Commerce let business people come...Nothing has happened there, so we have decided, in accordance with a proposal put to us by the State-owned Inputs Warehouse Company (IWC), as from January (2017), to transfer the management of the Kingstown Fish Market to the IWC...Trinidadian personalities and firms , if you come in, you have to come with some money.

“You can’t just come and want to run it because I remember an old Calypso between the Bajan and the Trini, ‘If you eat out my rice, then I want to see you bring something to the table’, if you want to still have any sensible conversation,” Gonsalves stated.

The SVG PM was speaking yesterday at the Calliaqua Fisheries Centre, in the town of Calliaqua where a formal handing over ceremony took place for The Project for the Improvement of Fishery Equipment and Machinery in St Vincent and the Grenadines.

The project, funded by Grant Aid from Japan, included the replacement of cooling equipment/ machinery at six fisheries where fish are stored before sale/export as well as two refrigerated vehicles (trucks) for the distribution of fish.

Japan’s non-resident Ambassador to SVG, Mitsuhiko Okada, revealed that “the value of the grant for upgrades and new equipment at six main (fisheries) is US $4.6 million.” Speaking with the TT media contingent in SVG for this and other handing over ceremonies of equipment and/ or upgrades funded by Japan, PM Gonsalves said the fisheries centres are “not for purchase.” Rather, private sector entities from TT, SVG and elsewhere would negotiate, “lease arrangements”, the length of which would be “subject to discussion; what they bring to the table.” Gonsalves took the opportunity yesterday to announce a total ban on turtle hunting and the eating of turtle eggs in SVG, effective January 1, “in keeping with the mantra, ‘No extinction in our generation’ (because) one species in particular, and another, are being depleted rapidly.” He also said a project is, “being devised for turtle watching” in the parts of SVG where these turtles traditionally nest..