The community of Mayaro relied on fishing and agriculture as traditional livelihoods and later on the oil and gas sector became its mainstay, since most of T&T's oil and natural gas production comes from offshore oil fields east of Mayaro. The major producer is BPTT, together with BHP Billiton. But the lethal combination of US oil prices plummeting below zero on April 20 coupled with the COVID-19 pandemic has dealt the southeastern county a devastating economic body blow.
Hundreds of people have been temporarily laid off from the oil and gas industry in T&T because of the virus, while watermelon farmers in Mayaro were forced to dump their unsold produce in the early weeks as the coronavirus and the countrywide lockdown kept many buyers from venturing into Kernaham and Cascadoo villages.
Discussing the T&T economy and the challenges for Mayaro in a post-COVID-19 world with MP Rushton Paray in a Zoom video conferencing interview on April 19 economist Dr Roger Hosein identified the county's economic Achilles' heel as being its vulnerability to unemployment.
Quoting figures from the Central Statistical Office's Continuous Sample Survey of Population (CSSP) on the geographical distribution on employment, he said Mayaro had one of the higher unemployment rates in the country at 6.4 per cent in 2017 compared to 4.8 per cent for the rest of T&T.
Hosein said 83 per cent of unemployed people in Mayaro in the last four months or more remained unemployed, while a high proportion of people were working for less than $3,000 a month.
Guardian Media visited Mayaro to ask residents how they were faring during the energy and coronavirus crises.
Many fishing pirogues were anchored at the Ortoire River; only two pirogues had fish and the fishermen were selling their catch to two vendors. Police officers were on hand to ensure that social distancing was maintained.
There was no enticing aroma of his signature succulent roast fish on banana leaves wafting in the air by Clevon "Ducky" Sampson of Ducky's Ortoire Organic Roast Seafood in Ortoire Village, Mayaro, as there were no customers. He had large fresh hammerhead sharks, the catch of the day hanging on display for sale, however.
Sampson said "Since coronavirus came about it's been a struggle for fishermen lately, I have trouble in roasting and selling fish. Roast fish was going good for the community, it has slowed down drastically. I'm also a fisherman, I've gone back to selling fish like what I did before.
"The boats come late, sometimes 3 to 5 pm, depending on what boat we're dealing with, by the time we get the fish, we have to come off the road and not getting enough time to sell to customers.
"We're not getting grace to sell fish, we have to stop at 6 pm, people can't come and eat the roast fish. If I get fish from yesterday, I have to refrigerate it for the night and we're known for fresh fish, it's hard for us."
He said wholesale vendors were paying fishermen less money for their catch now and the Ortoire fish landing facility was a white elephant.
Sampson said his fuel expenditure for one pan of gasoline was $500 which cost more than his catch. He appealed to the Government to bring back regular fuel for outboard engines
He said the good thing was fishermen wouldn't starve, they can eat their fish or donate to needy villagers if they can't sell.
Sampson said COVID-19 had a domino effect on villagers, not only the more than 80 fishermen and their families, but even the famous roast fish lobster festival in Easter that attracts locals and tourists alike and generates revenue for vendors and the community was cancelled.
He said fishermen also came in with their catch early in the morning depending on the species, but this had stopped because their floating nets were being lost and damaged due to the Sargassum seaweed in the water, so they relied on late fishing using fish pots to catch seafood such as red fish, lobster, cavalli, cro cro and barracuda.
Sampson said he was owing some fishermen, but was encountering problems paying because of the lockdown, but he paid what he could. He said his establishment usually had a big turnout and he would stock up on fish, but with the closure of business, he had to throw away some stock and never received any compensation.
Lucky Pinder, manager of Ducky's Ortoire Organic Roast Seafood said COVID-19 had really hit hard especially in rural areas where a lot of people were self-employed and operating Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs).
She said in communities like Mayaro where fishing was their main livelihood, the absence of customers impacted them severely.
Besides Ducky's, there were only four young men selling fish along Manzanilla Road, one of them was a crab catcher with no catch keeping his friends company and a fish cleaner. The catch of the day was fresh redfish literally right out of the water from the nearby Ortoire River.
The other roast fish booths dotting the area, one nicknamed Roast Fish Road, were closed, few cars passed and no customers were in sight.
Fish vendor Terrence Francois, 35, said before the coronavirus they were making a decent living selling fish and roast fish, but since the lockdown sales were slow.
He said many vendors were also not coming to buy, so if their fish remained unsold they would roast and eat it. Francois said they couldn't afford to overstock and risk spoiling if there were few customers.
Tyron John, 28, said he and his friends came out from 6 am to 5 pm to sell fish, crab and provision, and it becomes disheartening when they don't see customers for hours.
He said going out to sea to fish without vendors and customers was also a failure but they had to abide by the health and safety protocols.
John said they received a regular check from the police to make sure there were no more than five people at their stall and that they were maintaining social distancing.
He said they bartered their fish for items they needed like oil, provision and spices and that they urgently needed some form of assistance from the Government.
Since the story "Mayaro farmers forced to dump unsold produce" by Radhica De Silva came out in the April 11 Guardian, the situation with the watermelon and cantaloupe farmers had improved.
Watermelon farmer Jessie Rampersad from Kernaham Village said more people were coming to buy their produce since their plight was highlighted in the media and he was glad for that.
He said that day they had picked 14,000 pounds of watermelon in five hours, customers were coming from Chaguanas, Sangre Grande, Port-of-Spain, Couva.
Rampersad said the largest watermelon harvested so far was 70 pounds, prices depended on the grade of the watermelon and whether it was wholesale or retail. They had different varieties; orange, yellow, red, and Mickylee watermelons.
Workers onshore and offshore affected
President of the Mayaro Movement for Social Upliftment (MMSU) NGO Robert McIntosh's loss of vision has not prevented him from running his own business–a transport service. He said COVID-19 had not only affected companies in the oil and gas industry offshore but also the workers onshore.
He said a drilling rig employed four crews on rotation, consisting of catering and drill crews plus service hands. He said four meals were provided a day for them and if their contracts were terminated, between 120 to 140 people would have lost their jobs on one rig alone.
McIntosh said, however, there was some good news–two catering crews and two drill crews who were waiting for work since March 16 boarded the Transocean DD3 drilling installation one day before the lockdown.
He said before COVID-19, Mayaro had a high employment rate and had no serious crimes.
McIntosh said BPTT had adopted Mayaro–emergency services and frontline workers such as police, doctors, nurses in hospitals, fire officers were provided with hand sanitizer and masks, plus donations were made to needy cases, hampers valued $500 were given out to more than 300 people and was ongoing.
He said PERENCO provided food assistance to 15 of MMSU members and their families and Massy Wood provided food hampers to four needy people from the Mayaro community.
McIntosh said bpTT and other oil companies sometimes conducted seismic surveys and to avoid collision with their equipment, they paid the fishermen not to fish, but some still went out anyway.
McIntosh said oil companies like BPTT, BHP Billiton, Shell and EOG exercised corporate social responsibility and implemented policies and programmes for the communities they were in.
He said there were supposed to be six rigs operational in Trinidad by September, but because of COVID-19, two of the contracts may be terminated.
Paray to look for help to set up SMEs to create jobs
Mayaro MP Rushton Paray said on Friday that he had processed more than 800 social assistance grant relief forms by the Ministry of Social Development and Family Services (MSDFS). He said the process had been simplified after his complaint online that they were complicated. However, accessing bank statements, bank accounts and other documents continued to hamper the speedy application process.
He said fishermen who lost business can also apply for assistance as they met the criteria for being self-employed, and had reduced income. Farmers in this situation could also apply.
Commenting on the high unemployment levels in Mayaro and people who worked for less than $3,000 a month, Paray said millions of dollars had been cycled through the county over the last 30 years, yet so many people were still working in the 1990 salary range which created a problem with their spending power as well.
He said Mayaro not only lacked employment opportunities but also a fair amount of employers not generating enough small businesses that would utilise the available labour.
Paray said he can perhaps use his office to talk to some of the lending agencies to look and see what SMEs can be set up.
He said the Mayaro Initiative for Enterprise Development (MIPED), a micro-finance lending organisation sponsored by bpTT to encourage more SMEs, can be approached to ramp up employment levels.
Paray said stakeholders and entrepreneurs can look at opportunities to make goods and services for export. If Mayaro can be turned into a manufacturing type of community, it would mean taking up a lot of screwdriver/assembly jobs.
He said his greatest concern going forward into a post-COVID-19 T&T was the impact of the double whammy of the energy crisis and virus on his constituents with Government spending and contract jobs like URP, CEPEP on the downswing. Normally the energy sector picked up the labour force, but now there was a breakdown on both sides.
Paray said urgent attention must be paid to small and micro enterprises as these businesses take up the majority of employees at the retail level and if businesses were not protected, there will be no jobs for them to return to in August or September when some form of normality returns.
He said while the State was looking after employees and vulnerable people, there were small businesses with no money coming in still having to pay utilities, rent, power, licences and fees. He said the State had not provided any funding or grant allowances for these kinds of businesses to remain economically alive for the next few months and survive to be able to open in August.