Lam­beau fish­er­man Ed­win Ramkissoon says he lost every­thing in last year’s oil spill—his boat, en­gine, and gear—but was giv­en the same com­pen­sa­tion as fish­er­men who were bare­ly af­fect­ed.

Ramkissoon said his ves­sel Fish­er of Men was stuck in oil for days fol­low­ing the Feb­ru­ary 7, 2024 spill. He couldn’t fish, his en­gine stopped work­ing, and his gear was ru­ined.

But when cheques were dis­trib­uted last week, Ramkissoon was stunned to learn he re­ceived the same 40 per cent of claims, as oth­ers who were still able to go out to sea.

His 40 per cent gave him just over $60,000 in as­sis­tance. He claimed oth­ers re­ceived cheques of over $100,000 for their 40 per cent.

In 2024, the THA al­lo­cat­ed $2 mil­lion to as­sist af­fect­ed fish­er­men while they await­ed fi­nal ap­proval of their claims from the In­ter­na­tion­al Oil Pol­lu­tion Com­pen­sa­tion (IOPC) Fund.

But Ramkissoon felt this com­pen­sa­tion reeked of favouritism.

“Es­pe­cial­ly like for my case, I was bad­ly af­fect­ed. You’re sup­posed to deal with me dif­fer­ent­ly. That is what I thought they would have done, you un­der­stand? Be­cause oth­er fish­er­men was go­ing to sea. I could not go. Every day I com­ing down and watch­ing my boat in the oil … my boat could have be­come a swamp, be­cause I couldn’t go out to the boat,” he said.

Ramkissoon said he sub­mit­ted re­ceipts, quo­ta­tions, and years of fish­ing records—but no one ever vis­it­ed or called to ver­i­fy his claim.

He said he nor­mal­ly earns up to $40,000 a month and es­ti­mat­ed he lost more than $78,000 in equip­ment alone—ex­clud­ing his loss of earn­ings. The mon­ey he re­ceived, he said, felt like a dis­re­spect af­ter wait­ing for over a year for help.

“This $63,501.50 … I am not com­fort­able, not com­fort­able at all. This is dis­sat­is­fy­ing. I don’t like this at all. I talk in my mind and my heart. I’m not com­fort­able with this. For a fish­er­man who from Lam­beau on the beach and the oil come in and reach him, I not sup­pose to ac­cept this.”

Ramkissoon said he could on­ly use the help to re­pair the boat—but not re­place what was lost.

Ramkissoon has ap­pealed to the new En­er­gy Min­is­ter Dr Roodal Mooni­lal to re­view the sys­tem and give pri­or­i­ty to those who suf­fered the most.

“I just want some­body to say they un­der­stand. I just want to bounce back. I not beg­ging—I just want fair­ness.”