The avail­abil­i­ty of goods in To­ba­go is rapid­ly de­creas­ing due to the in­abil­i­ty of the fast fer­ries to trans­port large ve­hi­cles be­tween Trinidad and To­ba­go.

The is­land is cur­rent­ly fac­ing short­ages in the con­struc­tion sec­tor, with hard­ware stores run­ning out of es­sen­tial sup­plies like ce­ment, blocks and sand. Ware­hous­es are al­so ex­pe­ri­enc­ing a scarci­ty in food items such as beer, soft drinks, flour and an­i­mal feed. Scores of work­ers have al­so been tem­porar­i­ly re­trenched or sent on ear­ly va­ca­tions.

The is­sues stemmed from a fire on­board the Cabo Star two weeks ago, which dam­aged elec­tri­cal ca­bles. In a re­lease last week, the Port Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go stat­ed that it would take sev­en days to ship the ca­bles for re­pairs. Car­go has since been ac­com­mo­dat­ed on board the Galleons Pas­sage and APT James.

Yes­ter­day, mem­bers of the To­ba­go Busi­ness Cham­ber of­fi­cial­ly de­clared the sit­u­a­tion a cri­sis.

Miles Al­man­dos Ltd, one of To­ba­go’s largest ware­hous­es and dis­trib­u­tors for Carib on the is­land, was out of beer and soft drinks.

The ware­house own­er, Phillip Al­man­dos, ex­plained, “We nor­mal­ly get at least ten ten-tonne trucks a week from Blue Wa­ters, Co­ca Co­la and Carib. So far over the two weeks, we have had noth­ing. We are out of soft drinks from Co­ca Co­la, we have no beer. We got a small load of Carib this morn­ing and that fin­ished this morn­ing. My ware­house is emp­ty. Flour is scarce, an­i­mal feed is a prob­lem. It’s not a great place to be.”

He said he was forced to send staff on va­ca­tion and re­duce shifts for the re­main­ing staff. Al­man­dos has called on the Gov­ern­ment to use a barge as a tem­po­rary so­lu­tion.

Mean­while, the head of the cham­ber’s in­ter-is­land trans­port com­mit­tee, De­mi-John Cruick­shank, told Guardian Me­dia that the sit­u­a­tion con­tin­ues to wors­en. Guardian Me­dia was in­formed yes­ter­day that some trucks have been wait­ing up to three days to get to To­ba­go. (See oth­er sto­ry)

Cruick­shank said, “We have a prob­lem where there is no con­struc­tion ma­te­r­i­al on the is­land from blocks, ce­ment, sand, steel. To­day (Wednes­day) marks two weeks that the ves­sel has been down, and we are not wis­er as to when that ves­sel will be up. To­ba­go will tru­ly start to see a shut­ting down of busi­ness­es. We have some of the larg­er busi­ness­es al­ready send­ing home staff and start­ing to shut down.”

He said To­ba­go’s con­struc­tion sec­tor has al­so halt­ed.

“All the ready-mix plants on the is­land have no ce­ment, and all the ready-mix work has come to a halt. Noth­ing is hap­pen­ing in the con­struc­tion sec­tor on the is­land. They claim that the Galleons Pas­sage is for car­go, but it can­not bring any heavy bulk car­go, on­ly light stuff like food and those kind of three-tonne trucks,” he said.

Cruick­shank, who is the own­er of D#1 Hard­ware, said his busi­ness is strug­gling.

“We in the con­struc­tion sec­tor need ten-tonne trucks to trav­el, and this is ridicu­lous ... We in To­ba­go have no food­stuff, and it is a re­al cri­sis now,” he said.

Fol­low­ing a meet­ing with the Port Au­thor­i­ty on Mon­day af­ter­noon, Cruick­shank ex­pressed con­cern.

He said there was no way the Galleons Pas­sage could cush­ion the blow to the seabridge fol­low­ing the re­moval of the Ca­ba Star, the coun­try’s on­ly car­go ves­sel.

“That is not work­ing out. That arrange­ment is on­ly for food­stuff items. It’s not for heavy con­struc­tion items. The Galleons Pas­sage can­not bring blocks, ag­gre­gate, sand, or steel. This makes no sense to us in the con­struc­tion sec­tor.”

He added, “If you look on the gro­cery shelves, you start to see a lot of items miss­ing. That’s be­cause the whole­salers in To­ba­go, their ware­hous­es are be­com­ing emp­ty, and we have no idea how to bring goods to the is­land, and that is a fact.”

How­ev­er, Chris­t­ian Tam, the own­er of In­de­pen­dence Square Ltd hard­ware, told Guardian Me­dia that while his busi­ness has suf­fered, he was glad food was still a pri­or­i­ty.

“It’s an un­for­tu­nate sit­u­a­tion, but we must have some pa­tience. At least we have food in To­ba­go. At least the Galleons Pas­sage is help­ing the food mer­chants with small­er trucks. I don’t think the Gov­ern­ment could rent a boat to­day for to­day. It takes a while. When ad­ver­si­ty comes, we have to deal with it. We will sur­vive; every­body is un­der pres­sure, but it’s not a life and death thing,” said Tam.

Claude Al­man­dos, the own­er of Al­man­dos Hard­ware, told Guardian Me­dia that he was see­ing short­ages across the store. He fears this will start an eco­nom­ic cri­sis and called on Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley and Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert to pro­vide a tax break so To­ba­go’s busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty can re­cov­er from this.

“I’m short of every­thing. Noth­ing is com­ing up,” he lament­ed.