Chairman of the Guyana National Fishing Folk Organisation Parmeshwar Jainarine
“… There are a lot of issues, the safety of the boats is not guaranteed, if you park your boat in Suriname and the rope happens to lose? If your boat loss, people gone come and take it away,” Jainarine lamented.
Yet another issue is that if these boats remain in Suriname, the Guyanese fisherfolk would now have to find alternative transportation to get back to Guyana.
To counter longstanding challenges of Guyanese fisherfolk plying their trade in Suriname, the Surinamese and Guyanese governments have been engaging each other. Some 150 licenses were promised to Guyanese fisherfolk so that they would not need to engage in the ongoing exploitative arrangement.
Even with the assurance of the government that Guyanese fishermen will be able to access these licenses there has been a pushback by Suriname, Jainarine said.
Based on media reports in the neighbouring country, however, the Surinamese government has faced some pushback from private sector players, and concerns from opposition members.
