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Friday, February 28, 2025

Tobago Chamber: We won't forget promises of new cargo vessel in election season

by

Elizabeth Gonzales
37 days ago
20250121
Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Industry and Commerce Tobago Division chairman Curtis Williams

Trinidad and Tobago Chamber of Industry and Commerce Tobago Division chairman Curtis Williams

VINDRA GOPAUL

ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

GML Cor­re­spon­dent

The chair­man of the To­ba­go di­vi­sion of the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (TTCIC), Cur­tis Williams, says the Cham­ber will en­sure that the promise of a new car­go ves­sel for the is­land is not over­shad­owed by elec­tion-year dis­trac­tions.

Williams told Guardian Me­dia that the new ves­sel is cru­cial for To­ba­go’s com­merce in this time, and he is de­ter­mined to hold au­thor­i­ties ac­count­able for de­liv­er­ing on their com­mit­ments.

The promise of a new car­go ves­sel resur­faced in 2023 af­ter a fire on board the Cabo Star car­go ves­sel.

The ves­sel was pulled from the sea bridge for emer­gency re­pairs, which took three weeks. This led to a short­age of food and build­ing ma­te­ri­als on the is­land. Ware­hous­es re­port­ed­ly ran out of beer, toi­let pa­per and wa­ter, while hard­ware stores were out of ce­ment, lum­ber and sand.

Ac­cord­ing to the Cham­ber, it is es­ti­mat­ed that the is­land’s busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty suf­fered some $5 mil­lion in loss­es.

On the re­turn of the ves­sel to the sea bridge, Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port Ro­han Sinanan promised that the is­land should have a new ves­sel 16 months af­ter the ten­der­ing process.

The RFP for this new car­go ves­sel was ini­tial­ly set for re­lease in Oc­to­ber 2023 but was de­layed un­til March 2024.

Ac­cord­ing to the RFP, the ves­sel is ex­pect­ed to take 14 to 16 months to build, tar­get­ing a de­liv­ery date of June 2026.

The new ves­sel will fea­ture a speed of 20 knots, ac­com­mo­date 240 truck­ers and have 40 en-suite pas­sen­ger cab­ins, along with lounges for 200 peo­ple.

It will trans­port a min­i­mum of 130 trucks and in­clude spe­cial stor­age for LPG tanks and dan­ger­ous car­go.

In 2024, the chair­man of the Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd (NID­CO), Her­bert George, said the com­pa­ny had re­ceived three bids for the new car­go ves­sel’s pro­cure­ment. Since then, there has not been any word on the pro­cure­ment process.

This has left Williams wor­ried.

“No, we’re not go­ing to let it get lost at all,” he said. “This is To­ba­go, and it ben­e­fits Trinidad and To­ba­go. We are not go­ing to give up on that. Elec­tion year, yes, we know there will be fan­cy promis­es, but if there’s no de­liv­ery, we know what to do when the time comes. I’m plead­ing with the au­thor­i­ties that you de­liv­er on your promis­es. Don’t give us dreams like we liv­ing in a dream world.”

Williams ex­plained that the Cham­ber is set to meet with the Port Au­thor­i­ty be­fore the end of the month, at which time he hopes to get up­dates on the new ves­sel.

NID­CO chair­man Her­bert George could not be reached for com­ment.


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