Senior Fisheries Officer Julian Defoe has announced that rehabilitation works on the Roseau Fisheries Complex will begin soon.
The over $15 million intervention is being funded by the Government of Japan.
“The Roseau Fisheries Complex which is one of the biggest investment that is going to come on stream, we have passed the commitment level with the Japanese, we are into implementation, assessment, all of these things have been done,” Defoe said.
He said a comprehensive assessment was completed in November and added that during the last week in May 2019, the mission will re-visit Dominica in order to present the detailed outline of what they are going to do.
The complete rehabilitation will be redesigned to look at new food safety issues and processing issues, Defoe stated.
“We are looking at environmental friendly equipment so the old systems there which is many: ice, cold storage, the system before was using R-22 refrigerant, we are going to move into R-404 refrigerant to make it more environmentally friendly,” he explained.
The fisheries officer indicated that the emphasis is not only on the physical structure itself.
“A lot of work [will be done] in terms of laboratory,” Defoe explained. “We are going to have a modern lab where we can do testing, not only for fisheries purposes but we are looking … to integrate the services.”
He added, “A Lab for only fisheries purposes would not be prudent, so we are looking to share this laboratory with other sectors.”
According to Defoe, the roof will be redesigned to become more resilient and the perimeter walls will also be increased.
The Fisheries Complex is wasted space. It should be turned into the Roseau Ferry Terminal.
Soon the fish will have a better reception than the passengers at the ramshackle ferry terminal next door.
I hope that ‘gift’ is not in exchange for an international whaling vote when this is meant to be the ‘nature isle’ with local whale populations in residence…
Any vacancy for capainters, or mason workers.
Them Japanese have their team ready to roll so i doubt they might hire Dominicans.
If they hired Dominicans, that project would never finish. When is the last time that a Dominican contractor completed a project on time? You hire them, they work two days, go and drink their rum then they come back on Friday for their pay.