The Tribune

By YOURI KEMP

Tribune Business Reporter

ykemp@tribunemedia.net

A Bahamian fisherman yesterday voiced concern that Dominicans, previously prevented from working on local boats under the Fisheries Act 2020, were getting around this law by obtaining citizenship

Keith Carroll, the National Fisheries Association’s (NFA) president, admitted to Tribune Business “there is nothing we can do” if Dominican fishermen - previously employed on work permits - were legitimately gaining citizenship so they can work on Bahamian-owned boats.

“The former government stopped issuing work permits for them and implemented policies that you have to be a Bahamian to go on a boat,” he added, “but now we see this government giving a lot of Dominicans citizenship.

“The same Bahamian boats that used to have them before, they have them again. But the thing is they are Bahamians now because they have their passports. There is nothing we can do; the Bahamian government is doing this. There is nothing we can do.”

The move to ban foreign fishermen working on Bahamian vessels faced stiff resistance from commercial fisheries wholesalers and exporters. They, along with the wives of the Dominican fishermen, and their then-attorney, Alfred Sears KC, the current minister for immigration and national insurance, took the administration to court on constitutional grounds.

They argued that the Fisheries Act 2020 created “arbitrary and discriminatory treatment” for the Bahamian wives of the fishermen involved, but the original motion for a permanent injunction against the legislation failed. Mr Carroll, though, said: “This will be a problem. In the future, this will be a big problem.”

Meanwhile, the grouper season ends on December, 1 with prices for grouper similar to those for crawfish prices. “The grouper season is good because, for the past years that the grouper season was closed, we can see that we are catching more grouper for the past couple of months now,” Mr Carroll said.

“We can see where the groupers school. It is better for fishermen. They now have a chance to spawn. The closure over the past years, where fishermen were not allowed to catch them, we can see the results now. We are doing better because they are allowed to reproduce now. You can get anywhere up to $8 or $10 per pound now for grouper. It’s almost the same value as crawfish now.”