Forde: Fisherfolk hard to ‘pin’ down

Too many fisherfolk are not paying National Insurance and are not registered with the Barbados Revenue Authority (BRA).

That was revealed by Minister of the Environment, Natural Beautification and the Blue and Green Economy, Adrian Forde.

He lamented how unregulated fisherfolk were creating headaches as the ministry seeks to disburse funds as part of the relief efforts to help them recover from the devastating effects of Hurricane Beryl’s storm surge, which impacted the country on July 1.

“I can say for a fact that many were not formally documented into the system over the years.

“We have so far paid funds over to 469 persons and those are the ones who would have met the legitimate criteria of having the bank accounts and the TAMIS (Tax Administration Management Information System) numbers and have the proper registrations,” he told the Sunday Sun.

Forde said that as some fisherfolk come into the Fisheries Division to make their claims, the department has been helping them to get accounts with financial institutions and get registered with BRA and the National Insurance and Social Security Service (NISSS).

“Some of them never had any accounts, so we had to work with them to get bank accounts set up and also accounts with other institutions. Some had accounts that were dormant and so we have officers in the ministry that have been delegated to help them.”

Issue

He added that one issue that cropped up since they started to pay out disbursements was that there were some people who were already employed by Government.

“Some of them are employed in Government but are working as captains and boat crew on a temporary or part-time basis, so they cannot get any of the funds.

[NISSS] would have done their checks and filtered the list.”

The minister said there was much resistance from the fisherfolk over being entered into the Government department’s database.

“It was a very informal sector and so we are now trying to get people into the formal loop of things. So, it is a challenge.

“It is a tedious exercise to get them to come in. They know once they have the bank accounts and the TAMIS number, they are now in the system of social services.

“They now have to pay National Insurance and all the things they never did before, but they cannot get any funds if they are not registered. Let me make that clear,” he stressed.

Forde said this was not just the case in Barbados.

“This is a worldwide problem. The industry is unreported and unregulated – very informal. The Fisheries Management Act will seek to regulate all these things and that has been approved by Cabinet. It will bring a holistic management system to the whole fishing sector.”

He said it is only when a disaster like Beryl occurred then “we realise how many people are not registered with [NISSS] or even have insurance. We have been appealing for so long for them to come forward. [The] majority of the fisherfolk were not registered when we started this process”. ( NS)

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