Camille Clarke

Charles Car­val­ho, the agent for Car­val­ho's Trav­el said he plans to take le­gal ac­tion against the Port Au­thor­i­ty af­ter al­le­ga­tions were made that he owes them up to $1.6 mil­lion. Three cruise ships booked un­der Car­val­ho's Trav­el were turned away from To­ba­go last month and a po­ten­tial 28 cruis­es ships next year are still un­sure of dock­ing un­til the is­sue is set­tled.

Car­val­ho's Trav­el is re­spon­si­ble for 95 per cent of the cruise ships vis­it­ing T&T ports. In an in­ter­view, chair­man of the Port Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go Joseph Toney said Car­val­ho was ow­ing $1.6 mil­lion and the cruise ship agen­cies abroad were con­tact­ed about the agent's plight. "We ex­plained to them what were the facts and they were in­formed why we took that ac­tion. He owes us mon­ey, that is our con­tention. Once he pays it is not a prob­lem," Toney said.

The Port Au­thor­i­ty chair­man said sev­er­al at­tor­neys rep­re­sent­ing the Port Au­thor­i­ty were con­tact­ed for their ad­vice. "This is an on­go­ing debt in our books for the longest while and we have called in the lawyers since all oth­er ef­forts now have been in vain. He is ow­ing be­tween $1.2 to $1.6m. It is in the hands of our lawyers and we have writ­ten nec­es­sary pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ters to his lawyers and we are wait­ing for them to re­spond and will de­ter­mine what to do af­ter," Toney said.

He said oth­er ship­ping lines un­der oth­er agents would be ac­cept­ed at the port. "The oth­er ship­ping lines that are not with that agent can come in. We have no prob­lem with that," he said. He al­so said three cruise ships have since been turned away from To­ba­go.

Mean­while, Car­val­ho said his clients in­formed him they were con­tact­ed by the Port Au­thor­i­ty and ad­vised to switch to oth­er agen­cies. "We are dis­turbed the port has been send­ing out let­ters to our clients. All have con­tact­ed me and said they will stay with me. They have been with me some 27 years. My at­tor­neys are deal­ing with it," Car­val­ho said. He said his arrange­ment with Roy­al Caribbean Cruise Lines is now un­steady af­ter the al­le­ga­tions of the debt were made.

"There are 28 cruise ships with Roy­al Caribbean Cruise Lines that are sup­posed to come in next year and this has made them shaky. Why are they giv­ing out let­ters to the cruise lines and ask­ing them to deal di­rect­ly with them?" he asked. Car­val­ho said one of the cruise ship agen­cies based in Flori­da, Unit­ed States, con­tact­ed him con­cern­ing the let­ters.

"There is a say­ing in Amer­i­ca that 'you do not wash your dirty laun­dry in pub­lic.' They need to deal with me. The cruise line is not their client, it is mine. I han­dle 95 per cent of the ships and 27 work­ing re­la­tion­ships with cruise lines and every­body has their way of do­ing busi­ness," he said.

"The port is dou­ble billing and over­charg­ing for cer­tain items. The Port Au­thor­i­ty is delin­quent with their out­stand­ing in­voic­ing. We know what we will be ow­ing based on the pre­sen­ta­tion. We re­quest­ed to the port to present cer­tain in­voic­ing we owe so we can ver­i­fy our records," he said.

Car­val­ho said the port charges $19,000 to $35,000 per ship for dock­ing fees, head tax, pas­sen­ger spend­ing and oth­er spend­ing. "I rather pay them off and let them be in my debt," he said. Car­val­ho said he re­ceived the pre-ac­tion pro­to­col let­ters and the mat­ter will be present­ly be­fore the courts.

When con­tact­ed, Mi­nor­i­ty Leader in the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Ash­worth Jack was asked if the Gov­ern­ment could "for­give" Car­val­ho's debt. He said: "I don't agree in for­get­ting the debt we need to make an arrange­ment. He (Car­val­ho) has called me and I in­ves­ti­gat­ed. The Min­istry of Tourism needs to talk to the com­pa­nies and make oth­er arrange­ments.

"It is un­ac­cept­able if some­one was col­lect­ing mon­ey for the Gov­ern­ment and not pay­ing it to the Trea­sury. You can't col­lect on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment and use it for your own pur­pose," he said. He said the Gov­ern­ment and oth­er stake­hold­ers were work­ing on oth­er so­lu­tions.

"I heard of the prob­lem and it is not in­sur­mount­able but he al­so has to pay his debts and we have to find a way to al­low them to con­tin­ue. "We must be able and there must be a way to do it. We have not worked out a so­lu­tion as yet. Cruise ship sea­son is in the win­ter but whether it is one or 100. As long as it does not af­fect the in­dus­try," Jack said.

Trans­port Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj said Tourism Min­is­ter Ru­pert Grif­fith will be mak­ing a state­ment in Par­lia­ment this week and he did not want to pre-empt what the min­is­ter had to say. At­tempts to con­tact Grif­fith proved fu­tile.