Baptiste Remains Doubtful on Fisheries Regulations

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Wednesday, 27 June 2012 02:30

By caribarena news

Antigua St John's - Fisheries Minister Hilson Baptiste says he cannot say for sure if next Monday’s meeting with stakeholders to further vet the Fisheries Regulations will indeed result in the immediate signing of the document into effect.

Caribarena spoke with the minister on Tuesday as part of efforts to ascertain the envisioned outcome of next Monday’s talks.

“I can’t discuss that right now,” is how the Baptiste responded to questions on whether or not he expects to sign the document after the talks conclude.

In the meantime, conservationist and fisherman Eli Fuller has said that despite the minister’s attempt to quiet the rumble about his inactivity in having the six-year-old Fisheries Act implemented his group will still be pressing forward to secure intervention by the prime minister.

Fuller has launched a petition seeking some 2000 signatures in support of a speedy resolution to what he and others see as the destruction of the sector.

He maintains that the petition is to the prime minister and not the fisheries minister and therefore it will go through.

“We have petitioned the prime minister because he (Baptiste) is not doing anything about it (the Act),” Fuller said. “We are going backwards not forward, that is why we have petitioned the prime minister.”

As far as he is concerned, Monday’s meeting is nothing shy of a “talk shop” that will take the process at least five steps back. In Observer media reports on Tuesday Minister Baptiste opined that Fuller’s petition and his attempt at an audience and possibly action from the Prime Minister is pointless.

“That’s not going anywhere. I’m not paying that any mind. We have told them what we have to do and that (the petition) will not make it go any faster,” Baptiste said in the report.

Eli Fuller said the directors of the Antigua Conservation Society also believe that the consultation set to take place on Monday has already happened. These consultations occurred prior to the bill being presented in the House in 2006.

“This is a typical move by bother B to bury this thing for the next six months or six years. What he is doing now is going back and starting from scratch,” Fuller said.

Fuller cited a recent news article where the fisheries minister is quoted as saying that he will sign off only on the regulations that “make sense” and those that “all can agree upon and follow”.

“That is nonsense,” Fuller said. “You can’t have fishermen regulating themselves because there are some out there who don't want to be regulated.

“Another nonsensical statement,” Fuller continued, “is that this is political. I have never ever put any politics in any of this. This has nothing to do with politics or politicians,” Fuller declared.

As far as the Monday meeting goes, he said if he were invited he would undoubtedly represent all areas of interest.

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