FFOS blames govt negligence for boating tragedy

Fish­er­men and Friends of the Sea (FFOS) has blamed suc­ces­sive gov­ern­ments for fail­ing to in­tro­duce leg­is­la­tion to im­prove mar­itime safe­ty, fol­low­ing Sun­day’s boat­ing col­li­sion off Ch­aguara­mas, which left five peo­ple miss­ing.

In a state­ment yes­ter­day, FFOS cor­po­rate sec­re­tary Gary Aboud said the or­gan­i­sa­tion had spent 30 years call­ing for mod­ern fish­eries man­age­ment leg­is­la­tion to ad­dress ves­sel reg­is­tra­tion, cap­tain li­cens­ing, op­er­a­tor com­pe­ten­cy, speed re­stric­tions and en­force­ment.

Full coverageTwo Boats Collide Off Chaguaramas, Leaving Five People Missing14 reports

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“Thir­ty years of warn­ings. Thir­ty years of ex­cus­es. How many more fam­i­lies must suf­fer?” Aboud asked.