Shas­tri Boodan

The lo­cal busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty is grow­ing in­creas­ing­ly frus­trat­ed over per­sis­tent bu­reau­crat­ic bot­tle­necks at the coun­try’s ports. Ten ma­jor busi­ness or­gan­i­sa­tions voiced their con­cerns dur­ing a sym­po­sium on the op­er­a­tions of Cus­toms host­ed by the Cou­va/Point Lisas Cham­ber of Com­merce on Wednes­day.

Nadi­ra Dass, first vice-pres­i­dent of the Cus­toms Clerks and Bro­kers As­so­ci­a­tion, out­lined the dai­ly dif­fi­cul­ties faced by cus­toms bro­kers in clear­ing goods. She crit­i­cised the in­ef­fi­cien­cy of the Cus­toms process, cit­ing a re­cent in­ci­dent where the ASY­CU­DA sys­tem went of­fline and the on­ly com­mu­ni­ca­tion from the Comp­trol­ler of Cus­toms and Ex­cise was a gen­er­al pub­lic no­tice.

Dass stat­ed that re­peat­ed at­tempts by her as­so­ci­a­tion to se­cure a meet­ing with the Comp­trol­ler have been un­suc­cess­ful. She al­so flagged crit­i­cal staffing short­ages and lim­it­ed op­er­at­ing hours as ma­jor con­trib­u­tors to de­lays.

“Cus­toms of­fi­cers of­ten start af­ter 9 am and fin­ish by 3 pm,” said Dass. “Some­times we are un­able to speak with any­one, and when we try to seek as­sis­tance, we are met with hos­til­i­ty.”

She added that at the Cus­toms Se­lec­tiv­i­ty Unit—re­spon­si­ble for screen­ing doc­u­men­ta­tion—bro­kers are not per­mit­ted to com­mu­ni­cate di­rect­ly with of­fi­cers, fur­ther ex­ac­er­bat­ing de­lays.

Dass al­so ex­pressed con­cern about the lim­it­ed hours of op­er­a­tion at the Con­tain­er Ex­am­i­na­tion Sec­tion (CES), which runs be­tween 9 and 10 am un­til 3 pm, with staff fre­quent­ly di­vert­ed to per­form over­time du­ties on ‘premis­es con­tain­ers’. She called on the Gov­ern­ment to en­sure week­end op­er­a­tions are im­ple­ment­ed to re­duce the back­log.

Among oth­er key is­sues raised:

• Se­vere un­der­staffing across all cus­toms de­part­ments;

• No con­tin­gency plan in place for ASY­CU­DA sys­tem fail­ures, lead­ing to sig­nif­i­cant trade dis­rup­tion;

• Chron­ic con­ges­tion at the Port of Point Lisas;

• Lack of stan­dard op­er­at­ing pro­ce­dures and poor work­place dis­ci­pline—in­clud­ing re­ports of cus­toms cashiers ar­riv­ing late, leav­ing ear­ly, and tak­ing ex­tend­ed lunch breaks;

• Calls for ex­pe­dit­ed clear­ance of trade car­go, week­end de­liv­ery ser­vices, and tighter scruti­ny of per­son­al ef­fect ship­ments, which are be­lieved to be a chan­nel for il­le­gal im­ports

Dass con­clud­ed by ad­vo­cat­ing for the im­ple­men­ta­tion of a man­u­al back-up sys­tem that would au­to­mat­i­cal­ly ac­ti­vate dur­ing dig­i­tal out­ages, in or­der to min­imise dis­rup­tion to trade.

Mean­while, Dr Vaalmik­ki Ar­joon, econ­o­mist and vice-pres­i­dent of the Ch­agua­nas Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, rec­om­mend­ed that the ad­min­is­tra­tion ex­plore a strate­gic part­ner­ship with In­dia to mod­ernise port man­age­ment. He said a pub­lic-pri­vate mod­el could at­tract much-need­ed in­vest­ment for up­grad­ing in­fra­struc­ture and dredg­ing the port to ac­com­mo­date larg­er ves­sels.

Dr Ar­joon not­ed that in­ef­fi­cien­cies have al­ready cost T&T mil­lions in lost rev­enue, as ship­ping lines are in­creas­ing­ly by­pass­ing the coun­try for more ef­fi­cient re­gion­al ports.

Echo­ing wider con­cerns, An­jie Jairam, pres­i­dent of the Fyz­abad Cham­ber of Com­merce, and Abrahim Ali of the San Juan Busi­ness Cham­ber, warned that the poor na­tion­al work eth­ic is al­so im­ped­ing progress. They de­scribed the pre­vail­ing at­ti­tudes with­in the work­force as be­ing detri­men­tal to na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment.

The Hauliers As­so­ci­a­tion added its voice to the dis­cus­sion, cit­ing de­lays caused by out­dat­ed equip­ment and ex­ces­sive red tape, which con­tin­ue to ham­per lo­gis­tics and sup­ply chain op­er­a­tions.

De­o­raj Ma­hase, pres­i­dent of the Cou­va/Point Lisas Cham­ber of Com­merce (CPLCC), said the or­gan­i­sa­tion is com­pil­ing a list of rec­om­men­da­tions to be sub­mit­ted to the new Gov­ern­ment, aimed at tack­ling the long­stand­ing chal­lenges with­in port op­er­a­tions.

CPLCC cec­re­tary Al­isha Mo­hamed Stephens not­ed that port pro­ce­dures were sig­nif­i­cant­ly faster dur­ing the tenure of for­mer Trade Min­is­ter Vas­ant Bharath (2010–2015), when goods could be cleared in as lit­tle as three days. She sug­gest­ed that cur­rent de­lays could be re­duced with stronger over­sight and ad­min­is­tra­tive re­form.

With pri­vate sec­tor voic­es grow­ing loud­er, pres­sure is mount­ing on the in­com­ing ad­min­is­tra­tion to pri­ori­tise port re­form, im­prove ef­fi­cien­cy, and re­store con­fi­dence among both lo­cal busi­ness­es and in­ter­na­tion­al trad­ing part­ners.