MSJ: 'Erin port most neglected in TT'

ERIN Fishing Port remains the most neglected port in TT, says the MSJ candidate for the area.

People who depend on the sea for a living are suffering because of the lack of security at the port. Squatters occupy the entire port area and there is garbage everywhere.

Fishermen say for years they have been calling on the authorities to clean up the port and provide proper storage for their daily catch, as well proper security, but their calls have fallen on deaf ears.

Wayne Cyrus, MSJ candidate in the upcoming local government elections, toured the port on Thursday.

He said, “It is more than 20 years now that the people of Palo Seco have been neglected.

"The Erin fishing port has turned in a dump where garbage floats up everywhere.”

He pointed out where people set up their tubs to wash clothes on the shore because they do not have pipeborne water.

The fishermen, he said, are scared to go out at sea because of the many attacks by pirates.

“Basically the fisherfolk from Erin and the people of Palo Seco are crying out for good representation,” Cyrus said.

Fisherman Haroon Abdool said fishermen are not making as much as they did ten years ago.

“I have been working as a fisherman for the past 20 years, and the last five years we have been robbed of our livelihood, because of several attacks as sea and no security, for Coast Guards to look out for us,” Abdool said.

In the early day, he said, fishermen would go out at sea during the night and return early in the morning to sell their catch to wholesalers.

“Then we go to our home for rest and then go out at night again,” he said.

Today, they go fishing during the day and have to stay at the port all day to sell their catch. Many fishermen, he said have abandoned their work and gone into construction and gardening to make a living.

Abdool said coastal erosion is also a problem. He said the port is now smaller as more than 100 feet of the shoreline had washed away in a three-year period.

“There was a concrete pathway built from the fishing facility to the sea, and this also fell apart with the erosion.”

Cyrus said there is a perennial problem during the rainy season of excessive flooding for the people of Happy Valley, two miles from the Erin beach.

“The reason why this area floods every year is because of poor infrastructure work and the clogged drains andwater ways leading to the sea,” he said.

In the Los Eros area there are no recreational facilities for children, he said, and residents who can afford it will take their children all the way to Point Fortin to play games. But the roads are in a deplorable state and people who travel must pay huge fares to get out of Erin and Palo Seco as a result.

"The resources that are available to the government are more than enough to give equal represention to all communities through the country," Cyrus said.

A former employee of Petrotrin, he said he intends to spend his time working for the people to restore Erin and Palo Seco.