RAD­HI­CA DE SIL­VA

rad­hi­ca.sookraj@guardian.co.tt

The in­ter­na­tion­al port of Ce­dros has been shut down af­ter a sew­er sys­tem mal­func­tioned, leav­ing scores of Venezue­lans and oth­er for­eign­ers in a quandary.

An im­mi­gra­tion source said five fer­ries car­ry­ing about 150 pas­sen­gers as well as six oth­er car­go ves­sels had to turn back yes­ter­day af­ter ser­vice providers were in­formed by Im­mi­gra­tion of­fi­cers that the port was of­fi­cial­ly closed.

Since the Venezue­lan cri­sis, more than 700 Venezue­lans have been flock­ing legal­ly through the Ce­dros port on a week­ly ba­sis.

Fer­ries now sail four days per week, while small­er ves­sels car­ry­ing be­tween 18 to 20 pas­sen­gers make un­sched­uled stops.

How­ev­er, since the sew­er sys­tem mal­func­tioned on Sun­day, all fer­ries have been put on no­tice not to bring peo­ple through Ce­dros as the port was now closed.

An im­mi­gra­tion source said they have been over­whelmed with the in­crease in ar­rivals at the port. Wealthy Venezue­lans flock to Trinidad to buy ba­sic com­modi­ties such as rice, flour, milk, ba­by di­a­pers, toi­let pa­per and san­i­tary pads be­cause of the so­cio-eco­nom­ic cri­sis in their coun­try.

A Venezue­lan, who fled to T&T in Sep­tem­ber last year, said the con­di­tions at the port were un­bear­able.

“El­der­ly peo­ple have prob­lems com­ing off the fer­ry,” he said. This is be­cause there is no launch land­ing on the pier for em­bark­ing or dis­em­bark­ing of pas­sen­gers.

“There are no wash­room fa­cil­i­ties or drink­ing wa­ter af­ter we get off the fer­ry,” he added.

Even though the sew­er sys­tem broke down since Sun­day, the Im­mi­gra­tion and Cus­toms of­fi­cials were un­able to work com­fort­ably be­cause there was raw sewage in the build­ing which hous­es po­lice, cus­toms, im­mi­gra­tion and coast guard of­fi­cers.

“We are still wait­ing for clean­ers. Since Sun­day this hap­pened and there is still sewage wa­ter on the floor. The on­ly help re­ceived so far is from the Re­gion­al Cor­po­ra­tion which sent trucks to as­sist with the sew­er back­up,” a source said.

In an in­ter­view, coun­cil­lor for Ce­dros Shankar Teelucks­ingh con­firmed that the cor­po­ra­tion had to as­sist with the sew­er back­up.

Say­ing the cor­po­ra­tion despatched two cesspool trucks to as­sist, Teelucks­ingh called on the Min­is­ter of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Stu­art Young to rec­ti­fy the prob­lem.

“We at the cor­po­ra­tion have of­fered to as­sist the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty with the con­struc­tion of sew­er sys­tem but our calls have con­tin­ued to fall on deaf ears. In the mean­time, the port re­mains closed as they await the en­gi­neers from the main­te­nance de­part­ments of the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty and the Min­istry of Works.

I am call­ing on Min­is­ter Young and Sinanan to up­grade the port for our of­fi­cers so they can have a clean and healthy en­vi­ron­ment,” Teelucks­ingh said.

He said now that the port was closed, des­per­ate Venezue­lans may try to en­ter the coun­try il­le­gal­ly.

A source said there are sev­er­al il­le­gal points of en­try across the coun­try. Bays and in­lets along the Colum­bus Chan­nel where the Orinoco Riv­er flows in­clud­ing Ica­cos, Gal­far, Erin, Chatham, Mon Di­a­blo and Quinam.

Mean­while, the clo­sure of the port at Ce­dros had no im­pact at the op­er­a­tions at the San Fer­nan­do port.

Of­fi­cials from the Cus­toms and Ex­cise De­part­ment said there was reg­u­lar traf­fic at the port.

“We don’t nor­mal­ly get pas­sen­ger en­tries here on­ly car­go en­tries and we have not seen any ma­jor in­crease in car­go,” the of­fi­cer said.

Ef­forts to con­tact Min­is­ters Sinanan and Young proved fu­tile as calls to their cel­lu­lar phones went unan­swered. What­sApp mes­sages were sent to both Min­is­ters but no re­sponse was forth­com­ing.