Plymouth fishermen renew call for new jetty

Plymouth fishermen have renewed their call for a new jetty in the village after Tropical Storm Karen caused severe damage to the structure on Sunday.

"There is need for a new jetty over 15 years now but moreso now because of what has happened," fisherman Curtis Douglas told Newsday Tobago.

Describing the jetty as being on "high alert," Douglas said: "We are hoping that it does not totally collapse and make it even more difficult to retrieve some of those slabs, or it doesn't fall on any passing boats, because it is highly risky and dangerous.

"Right now, the jetty is on unchartered waters that you don't even want to go nearby. It is more unstable than before. But we have to secure the property as best we can."

Douglas again urged the authorities to assist the fishermen.

"Somebody has to come and not only see. We fed up of seeing. We want to know what the authorities would be doing to help the fishermen."

Douglas said the fishermen have been asking the authorities to lease the property to them by way of a Memorandum of Understanding to construct their own jetty.

"We want to chart our future and be independent of the central government and THA. But so far nothing has been done."

Douglas said they were able to salvage most of the fishing boats during the storm.

"Ninety-five per cent of the boats have been secured. We secured about ten boats but there was some damage to a sail boat and some of the nets were damaged."

Douglas said, however, two of the boats went under during the storm.

"We ended up salvaging those and the engines and we are trying our best to see how best we could refine them to have them working again."