With the M.V. Cabo Star sched­uled for dry­dock­ing next month, Works and In­fra­struc­ture Min­is­ter Jear­lean John met to­day with To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine to dis­cuss strate­gic in­fra­struc­ture pri­or­i­ties and in­ter­im car­go trans­port mea­sures.

The meet­ing, held in To­ba­go on Wednes­day 11 June, fo­cused on “the en­hance­ment of in­ter-is­land con­nec­tiv­i­ty, on­go­ing port de­vel­op­ment, and pro­posed car­go trans­port mea­sures” dur­ing the ves­sel’s ab­sence from Ju­ly 12 to Au­gust 3, ac­cord­ing to a Min­istry re­lease.

The Port Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go out­lined its in­ter­im plans to en­sure the un­in­ter­rupt­ed move­ment of car­go dur­ing the dry­dock­ing pe­ri­od. While full de­tails will be an­nounced sep­a­rate­ly, both lead­ers agreed on the need for sus­tained co­op­er­a­tion.

Min­is­ter John de­scribed the en­gage­ment as part of a “new phase of side-by-side de­vel­op­ment, ground­ed in mu­tu­al re­spect, shared re­spon­si­bil­i­ty, and a uni­fied ap­proach to na­tion­al progress.” She urged stake­hold­ers to adopt “a re­sults-dri­ven, col­lab­o­ra­tive mind­set to en­sure the suc­cess of the tran­si­tion pe­ri­od.”

Chief Sec­re­tary Au­gus­tine echoed the sen­ti­ment, stat­ing, “I wel­come the ap­proach to side-by-side de­vel­op­ment for both is­lands that is dri­ven by di­a­logue and col­lab­o­ra­tion. This au­gurs well for shared and eq­ui­table growth.” He al­so “high­light­ed the need for flex­i­bil­i­ty and prop­er com­mu­ni­ca­tion with To­ba­go stake­hold­ers” to en­sure the plan’s suc­cess.

John al­so held con­sul­ta­tions with rep­re­sen­ta­tives from the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, the To­ba­go Ho­tel and Tourism As­so­ci­a­tion, and the In­ter Isle Truck­ers and Traders As­so­ci­a­tion. These ses­sions, the Min­istry said, en­sured “on-the-ground ex­pe­ri­ences and sec­tor-spe­cif­ic in­sights are in­cor­po­rat­ed in­to the plan­ning and im­ple­men­ta­tion process.”

The Min­istry and the Port Au­thor­i­ty reaf­firmed their com­mit­ment to “prac­ti­cal, peo­ple-cen­tred, and fu­ture-ready” in­fra­struc­ture so­lu­tions, with a goal to “fos­ter sus­tain­able eco­nom­ic growth, strength­en in­ter-is­land in­te­gra­tion, and en­hance the qual­i­ty of life for the peo­ple of To­ba­go.”