To­ba­go fish­er­men are threat­en­ing un­rest if fish­ing ves­sels and en­gines across the is­land, par­tic­u­lar­ly in Ply­mouth, con­tin­ue to be stolen.

The fish­er­men claimed their pleas were be­ing ig­nored.

To­ba­go Fish­er­folk As­so­ci­a­tion pres­i­dent Cur­tis Dou­glas, in a me­dia con­fer­ence at Tur­tle Beach yes­ter­day, claimed the in­dus­try has been poor­ly treat­ed. He said as fish­er­folk strug­gle to pro­tect their ves­sels from thieves, they are now forced to pur­sue le­gal ac­tion against the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) for mon­ey owed.

“Boats are be­ing stolen left, right and cen­tre, you can’t say noth­ing. Peo­ple get­ting shot down in their own house while they sleep and you say­ing you not re­spon­si­ble. When you take of­fice, all the onus was on you and the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty be­longs to you. If you can’t man­age the re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, let them go,” Dou­glas said.

“I don’t find I should work when this place was un­der tur­moil and fix it and now you telling us you can’t pay us?

And since the fish­er­men had their en­gine stolen, no one from the THA paci­fy them.”

Re­fer­ring to the up­com­ing gen­er­al elec­tion in 2025, Dou­glas de­clared: “Eight months to go and we go (sic) let them know where fish­er­man grow, since they don’t care about fish­er­man. We are ask­ing for rep­re­sen­ta­tion and help, as well as safe­ty.”

One fish­er­man, Al­is­ter Mc­Cletchie, who said he was con­tract­ed to clean a THA ve­hi­cle and oth­er ma­chin­ery used in the oil spill, said he is yet to be paid.

“I’ve done my job. I’ve risked my life in this oil spill, in the can­cer­ous bunker fu­el. Now when I’m con­tact­ing the de­part­ment that con­tract­ed me, I was told be­have my­self be­cause I don’t have a con­tract,” he claimed.

In tears, an­oth­er fish­er­man, Garth Du­mas, called for an­swers.

“They have to give us what’s due to us. We need some sort of an­swers from those in au­thor­i­ty. We can’t do it alone and we still fight­ing.”

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine told Guardian Me­dia the mon­ey the THA re­ceived was on­ly able to pay bills up to April.

All To­ba­go Fish­er­folk As­so­ci­a­tion vice pres­i­dent Ju­nior Quashie called on the THA to un­der­stand the dam­age this will have on the is­land’s frag­ile econ­o­my.

“It hurts the fish­er­men, their fam­i­ly and the com­mu­ni­ty.”