The St. Lucia Fish Marketing Corporation is currently operating as a private enterprise although a final agreement between the government and the new firm has not been reached. During a sitting of the House of Assembly on April 17, Agriculture Minister Ezechiel Joseph announced the decision to privatize the corporation. The lack of a final agreement has not been without its consequences.
“It obviously slows things down because at this point we cannot approach the bank,” said managing director Hilary Herman. “We can’t do a lot of the things we need to do. For example, we can’t change the phone numbers to our new name because we don’t have a base document to work off of yet. We’re working at the pace of government, so we’ll just have to continue as we are until everything falls into place. Meanwhile that should not affect the relationship with fishers and their customers.”
Herman says that despite the circumstances, fishers have exceeded all expectations. Since the company began operations, Herman says it has purchased in excess of 20,000 lbs. of fish, which is a good sign. “We thought that because of the history with the former corporation, the fishers would have put up some resistance to working with another entity. Over the last three weeks we have worked up some personal relationships,” said Herman. As for sales to the public, Herman says the figures have been most encouraging and destined to get better, even though there has been no major advertising.
He added: “I wish I could say that the final agreement would happen tomorrow or next week, but I can’t. We’re really at the government’s mercy.”e
