Lee An­na Ma­haraj

Re­porter

leean­na.ma­haraj@guardian.co.tt

More than a year af­ter an oil spill at the Pi­lote Riv­er in Guayagua­yare, Richard Stan­ley, a fish­er­man for 25 years, is plead­ing with Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um to as­sist him in get­ting his life back up and run­ning.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia on Sun­day, Stan­ley said in late June last year, he and some oth­er fish­er­men set out to the Pi­lote Riv­er when they en­coun­tered oil in their nets.

He said since then he has been out of work, as his busi­ness has not been able to re­cov­er, be­cause the com­pa­ny did not fol­low through on their promise to com­pen­sate him for the dam­age done.

“Since the 29th of June, 2022, my boat has been parked up on the beach, my net has been down, I couldn’t make a day work for such a long time, and these peo­ple just keep telling me that they will com­pen­sate me for my dam­age and loss and I’m not see­ing it at all com­ing be­cause they just keep run­ning me around and run­ning me around and I get­ting re­al fed up of that,” he said.

Fisherman Richard Stanley stands next to his boat

KELLY ANN LEMESSY

He said he was di­rect­ed to a fe­male of­fi­cial at Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um, who in­struct­ed him to fill out sev­er­al forms and pro­duce a sam­ple of the dam­aged net.

“She sent the forms to me, I filled out the forms, and I sent it back to her via email. She mes­saged me back on What­sApp and told me that some­thing was not done on the form. I said OK, send it for me and I will do it back.

“She sent it, I did it back and I sent it. A few days lat­er she mes­saged me back and told me that I didn’t put the claim in the form. I made the claim, I put in the claim in the form, I put every­thing all over again and I sent it back for her,” he said.

Since then, Stan­ley claimed, no­body has come to his as­sis­tance. “(She) told me every­thing was in the le­gal de­part­ment and all I need­ed was to just fill out these forms, and as soon as I did that, they would com­pen­sate me. It’s been a year and count­ing since the date of this in­ci­dent,” he said.

When Guardian Me­dia reached out to Her­itage Pe­tro­le­um, the com­pa­ny’s rep­re­sen­ta­tive said they were un­able to com­ment at the time as the claim is still be­ing processed, but they said a re­sponse is forth­com­ing.