Dear Editor,
I refer to an article captioned, ‘Guyana begins to import fish, shrimp’ and skillfully connects this with Exxon’s operations. The article made a comparison with the first 6 months of 2019, 2020 and 2021 and concluded that for the past 2 years fish and shrimp production has been declining.
The Bank of Guyana Mid-Year Report 2021 states as follows: ‘The fishing industry recorded mixed output performance, resulting in a smaller contraction of 6.6 percent compared to the 12.1 percent recorded in June 2020. Prawns’ production increased significantly by 42.4 percent, which resulted from greater efficiency in the operation of prawn vessel operators. However, there was a decline in catches of fish and shrimp by 22.1 percent and 11.8 percent, respectively, due to a reduction in the operation of fishing vessels.’ It is clear that the contraction of the fishing industry in 2021 is smaller than in 2020, indicating an improvement. But the article failed to mention this. In addition, the Report specifically stated that ‘the decline in catches of fish and shrimp was due to the reduction in the operation of fishing vessels. This was completely ignored in the article.
The BoG Reports have clearly indicated that the Sector was grossly mismanaged by the Coalition, namely, by an incompetent Minister of Agriculture and his equally incompetent Government. The Agriculture Sector is now under the most competent Agriculture Minister ever and the improved progress in the Sector will undoubtedly continue. Let’s await the Year-End Report.
Yours sincerely,
Haseef Yusuf
