It's a Jamaican company with a huge footprint in the Caribbean, but, tonight, Rainforest Seafoods is under a serious 24 hour ultimatum from the Fisheries Department.
As we told you, the company - whose local base is in Independence Village - was caught trying to export undersized conch - and not one or two of them! Try over 22,000 undersized conch weighing over three thousand pounds!
The Fisheries Department found all this in a 40 foot container bound for export. And after weeks of checking bin after bin and weighing each conch - they finally finished their investigation last week.
And yesterday, the Fisheries Administrator Rigoberto Quintana wrote to the general manager of Rainforest Foods informing him that, with the written consent from the Director of Public Prosecutions, quote, "administrative proceedings may be commenced against Rainforest Seafoods Limited." He writes, quote, "This summary administrative proceedings are as a result of the Information and Complaint of (a) Officer...taken on June 29, 2023 whereby Rainforest Seafoods Limited was found in possession of a total of Twenty-Two Thousand Eight Hundred and Twenty-Seven (22,827) undersized market clean conchs, which is contrary to the Fisheries Resources Act and Regulations." End quote
Rainforest has 24 hours to answer whether it wishes to go the route of administrative proceedings - if not, they will have to go to court.
The letter was delivered to Rainforest's GM at 4:00 pm yesterday, so an answer was due by this evening.
These developments are being closely watched in the commercial fishing industry where the Jamaican company does not have many friends.
Mike Feinstein of Fein Catch yesterday wrote to the Minister of Blue Economy Andre Perez saying, quote, "to the naked eyes it appears that the Fisheries Department in the Ministry of the Blue Economy and Civil Aviation is attempting to water down the matter violation/s by Rainforest Sea Foods Limited..."
"Minister, this is the first season Rain Forest Sea Foods Limited received a conch export quota and in their first season they mired it with grave violations….For such a grave violation, oversight cannot be a defense, therefore it is now incumbent of the Fisheries Department to proceed to revoke their export permit/s and levy the appropriate fines in plain view of the public." End quote.
So, what will the fine be? Tonight, we must want and see - but at a minimum of $50 per conch - it would amount to more than 1.1. million dollars.
