The di­rec­tor of one of the coun­try’s main couri­er com­pa­nies, Paul Pan­tin, is call­ing for a re­turn to the 24-hour op­er­a­tions at the Cus­toms bond (Swis­s­port In­ter­na­tion­al AG) at Pi­ar­co sev­en days a week, much like it was be­fore the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic in 2020.

Dur­ing a phone in­ter­view with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, Pan­tin, who runs eZone, said hours at the bond were re­duced to eight dai­ly in the post-pan­dem­ic pe­ri­od and has not re­vert­ed, re­sult­ing in in­creased wait­ing time for mer­chan­dise.

“We went from be­ing fair­ly ef­fi­cient to be­ing ter­ri­ble. We had a 24-hour bond where we were clear­ing goods and ser­vices be­cause we have a 24-hour air­port that has 24-hour flights for car­go and so on. And when you de­crease that eight to four, what hap­pens ... You must have a back­log of car­go. You must have a bot­tle­neck,” he stat­ed.

He said no ad­just­ment was made to the sched­ule, even dur­ing the cur­rent Christ­mas peak sea­son.

“It’s im­pos­si­ble to clear the vol­ume that you clear in a small­er win­dow that you used to do ten years ago ... you know Cus­toms! Every­body knows that the air­line is go­ing to have ex­tra freight, ad­di­tion­al stuff is com­ing in—you think the Cus­toms go­ing to try and fa­cil­i­tate an ex­tra shift here or some oth­er thing here? No,” he said.

Pan­tin said be­cause of his ex­pe­ri­ence in re­cent years, his com­pa­ny has been able to work around the “set­backs” and en­sure their cus­tomers re­ceive their pack­ages on time, but he ad­mit­ted that it’s no easy task. The di­rec­tor said it’s eas­i­er to clear car­go in oth­er Caribbean is­lands.

“It re­al­ly is a frus­trat­ing thing. A tiny lil is­land in St Kitts, tiny lil is­land, they clear­ing our ship­ments left, right and cen­tre every day, every night, no mat­ter when it comes, how it comes be­cause they know it ben­e­fit­ting the peo­ple.”

Mean­while, busi­ness­es in the cap­i­tal city ad­mit­ted to ex­pe­ri­enc­ing slow sales for the sea­son.

Sports and Games man­ag­er Michael Wyke said sales start­ed slow­ly and he is hop­ing they pick up in the few days be­fore Christ­mas.

But his neigh­bour, the own­er of Hall­mark in Town Cen­tre Mall, blamed the crime sit­u­a­tion for the slow sales in Port-of-Spain.

Tri­cia Kow­lessar said peo­ple just don’t want to come in­to Port-of-Spain and sales have been the worst she’s seen in years. She said it was even worse than dur­ing the pan­dem­ic.

“For the cap­i­tal city, you not get­ting that flow,” she said.

Kow­lessar said they still get cus­tomers but on­ly be­cause Hall­mark has been a sta­ple at the mall for over two decades. She al­so called for Cha­con Street to be cleaned to at­tract more peo­ple.

One ven­dor, who asked to re­main anony­mous, said sales have been “re­al slow” this year and wished they had ac­cess to Char­lotte Street from De­cem­ber 1.

He al­so asked for a greater po­lice pres­ence.