Kevon Felmine

Mem­bers of the San Fer­nan­do Fish­er­folk As­so­ci­a­tion, ex­press­ing their dis­gust with the San Fer­nan­do wa­ter­front project, walked out on Car­olyn Seep­er­sad-Bachan dur­ing Mon­day night's pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion at Na­pari­ma Bowl. The fish­er­folk claimed the min­is­ter and her pan­el of de­vel­op­ers were ex­clud­ing poor peo­ple from the project, while mak­ing it lu­cra­tive for rich busi­ness­men.

It was the fi­nal pub­lic con­sul­ta­tion on the pro­posed project. Seep­er­sad-Bachan is the MP for San Fer­nan­do West and Min­is­ter of Pub­lic Ad­min­is­tra­tion. She and her pan­el found them­selves try­ing to de­fend the project for most of the func­tion. Res­i­dents were di­vid­ed. Some shared the min­is­ter's view that it would en­hance busi­ness and leisure in the south­ern city.

How­ev­er, many said the project, which had been in the plan­ning phase since 1988, was use­less to the true needs of the pub­lic. With con­stant out­bursts the fish­er­folk told the min­is­ter she was dis­re­spect­ful. They left halfway through the meet­ing. The project, which is ex­pect­ed to be pri­vate­ly fund­ed, en­tails re­lo­cat­ing the San Fer­nan­do fish mar­ket and fish­ing fa­cil­i­ties, con­struct­ing a man-made is­land and re­mov­ing sev­er­al prop­er­ties along the coast­line.

One of the ma­jor con­cerns raised was crime in the Em­ba­cadere dis­trict, the pro­posed area for the new fish mar­ket. One fish­er­man, who gave his name as Bha­gi, told Seep­er­sad-Bachan they were be­ing moved from an area where they had made a liv­ing for years and put in­to an area rid­dled with crime.

Re­call­ing an in­ci­dent when ven­dors were robbed at the fish mar­ket, he said be­ing moved to Em­ba­cadere would jeop­ar­dise their safe­ty. He told Seep­er­sad-Bachan, "You are dis­re­spect­ful for tak­ing the fish mar­ket and putting it where ban­dits live, in Em­ba­cadere. When you put us down in the la basse, how much peo­ple here would leave their homes and come down there to buy fish? Would you, Min­is­ter?

"You will not come there be­cause it has a ceme­tery there and it has a la basse there. You talk about tak­ing care of San Fer­nan­do with this project, but it has noth­ing for the poor man." Seep­er­sad-Bachan, who looked an­noyed at times, said it was crit­i­cal to up­grade the wa­ter­front to deal with crime in the area.

She said fish­er­men want­ed im­proved fa­cil­i­ties and the project ad­dressed these is­sues. She said the plan in­clud­ed con­struct­ing a break­wa­ter, pre­serv­ing the man­grove, im­prov­ing fish stor­age fa­cil­i­ties and seafood restau­rants. She added that the wa­ter­front would in­crease busi­ness ac­tiv­i­ty on High Street, which has been plagued by high rental costs and slow sales.

Lo­cal artist Michael Tan­ner ques­tioned the pan­el's knowl­edge of the ter­rain of San Fer­nan­do, ask­ing whether they were aware of the reef where they pro­posed to build an is­land. Sev­er­al oth­ers said it was bet­ter to spend mon­ey deal­ing with prob­lems in San Fer­nan­do rather than build­ing an is­land for the rich man.