SHAL­IZA HAS­SANALI

Se­nior In­ves­tiga­tive Re­porter

shal­iza.has­sanali@guardian.co.tt

Busi­ness­es across T&T are feel­ing the pinch as the clo­sure of crit­i­cal Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion (CED) con­tain­er ex­am­i­na­tion sta­tions (CES) at the Port-of-Spain and Point Lisas ports con­tin­ues to cause ma­jor de­lays in clear­ing goods.

Busi­ness own­ers have been left grap­pling with sig­nif­i­cant de­lays, es­ca­lat­ing stor­age rent, and de­mur­rage fees while they strug­gle to main­tain op­er­a­tions. Mean­while, there is no word on when the vi­tal in­spec­tion sta­tions will re­open.

On Sep­tem­ber 2, 2024, the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion (CED) closed its con­tain­er ex­am­i­na­tion sta­tion (CES) at the Port-of-Spain port due to a ro­dent in­fes­ta­tion. Ex­act­ly 142 days lat­er, on Jan­u­ary 21, 2025, Cus­toms was forced to shut down its sec­ond CES at the Port in Point Lisas due to struc­tur­al is­sues.

This de­ci­sion was made af­ter con­cerns were raised about the sta­bil­i­ty of the struc­ture, and Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion Ltd (Plipde­co) con­firmed the shut­down.

The struc­tur­al is­sue stemmed from an over­head steel beam that had col­lapsed in the CES area, mak­ing it un­safe for cus­toms of­fi­cers to car­ry out their du­ties, a cus­toms clerk told the Sun­day Guardian.

With both fa­cil­i­ties out of op­er­a­tion, im­porters have been fac­ing de­lays in the cus­toms process­es. As a re­sult, they have been pay­ing over­time to cus­toms of­fi­cers to have their con­tain­ers ex­am­ined di­rect­ly on their premis­es, by­pass­ing the nor­mal in­spec­tion pro­ce­dure at the CES fa­cil­i­ties.

How­ev­er, the Comp­trol­ler of Cus­toms and Ex­cise Ri­ad Ju­man said on Thurs­day that “the di­vi­sion con­tin­ues to work to min­imise any de­lays and block­ages as far as the de­liv­ery of car­go and con­tain­ers is con­cerned. The di­vi­sion is work­ing to ad­dress the is­sue.”

He could not say when the CES would be re­opened. Ju­man al­so de­nied that the port has been fac­ing chal­lenges and ad­vised that all ques­tions be di­rect­ed to the Min­istry of Fi­nance.

A press re­lease is­sued on Fri­day by CED stat­ed that the di­vi­sion had tem­porar­i­ly sus­pend­ed op­er­a­tions at the CES at both ports to fa­cil­i­tate on­go­ing in­fra­struc­tur­al works, as­sur­ing that mea­sures have been im­ple­ment­ed to main­tain the through­put of con­tain­ers and the pace of con­tain­er ex­am­i­na­tion, as well as sup­port for the busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty, en­sur­ing they will not be af­fect­ed.

The Sun­day Guardian ob­tained doc­u­ments that showed the staff were in­formed via an email on Sep­tem­ber 2, 2024, that the Port-of-Spain CES had to close “with im­me­di­ate ef­fect” due to a “ro­dent in­fes­ta­tion.”

Cus­toms of­fi­cers were ad­vised to ex­am­ine con­tain­ers on the im­porters’ premis­es be­tween 8 am and 4 pm, as the clo­sure of the CES would con­tin­ue un­til Oc­to­ber 31, 2024.

The fa­cil­i­ty was ex­pect­ed to re­sume op­er­a­tions on No­vem­ber 1. How­ev­er, an in­ter­nal memo dat­ed No­vem­ber 19 in­formed staff that there was a de­lay in get­ting the CES op­er­a­tional and that all re­pairs would be ex­e­cut­ed to fa­cil­i­tate the re­sump­tion of op­er­a­tions on Jan­u­ary 2, 2025. That did not hap­pen.

Busi­ness­men frus­trat­ed

On Thurs­day, two im­porters, who spoke anony­mous­ly, said they are grow­ing frus­trat­ed with the on­go­ing de­lays in clear­ing their con­tain­ers and pay­ing rent, de­mur­rage, and over­time. One busi­ness­man said the de­lay has been af­fect­ing his op­er­a­tions and cut­ting in­to his prof­it mar­gins. "Some­times it takes more than two weeks to clear a con­tain­er. Right now we have two con­tain­ers in the Port of Spain port that came in on Jan­u­ary 18. We don't know what is hap­pen­ing."

The last ship­ment cost the busi­ness­man $2,000 in stor­age fees. An im­porter pays the port a stor­age fee af­ter an al­lot­ted sev­en free days of stor­age run out.

The cost to store a 20-foot con­tain­er for one day at the Point Lisas port is $152.55 VAT in­clu­sive. A week of stor­age fees would amount to $1,067.85. These rates would be dou­bled if the im­porter had a 40-foot con­tain­er in stor­age.

In Point Lisas, the im­porter is giv­en sev­en days of free rent. Stor­age fees in Port-of-Spain are slight­ly low­er. It costs an im­porter $107.10 a day to keep a 20-foot con­tain­er in stor­age, while a 40-foot con­tain­er would cost $214.20.

The im­porter said re­cent­ly he had to pay near­ly $2,000 in over­time fees to a cus­toms of­fi­cer for in­spect­ing a 40-foot con­tain­er at his premis­es, even though the in­spec­tion took less than two hours.

He said im­porters would al­so be charged de­mur­rage costs for us­ing con­tain­ers by the ship­per.

"The de­mur­rage charges are far high­er than the stor­age fees be­cause the ship­ping agents would ask for pay­ments in US dol­lars. Some im­porters are al­lowed to pay in TT cur­ren­cy. But their ex­change rate is al­most TT$8 to one US dol­lar. You must pay these fees be­fore the con­tain­er is re­moved from the port. It could be US $100 or more per day. It all de­pends on the ship­ping line," he added.

An­oth­er busi­ness­man who im­ports pipe and pipe fit­tings said he has been pay­ing through his nose "and the de­lays are get­ting longer and longer." He said two of his con­tain­ers were de­layed by cus­toms on De­cem­ber 31 last year, which led to him pay­ing $7,000 in de­mur­rage. The pay­ment was a hard blow to him. "I had not paid de­mur­rage in six years, so you could imag­ine how I felt. The sys­tems at the ports have been break­ing down," the im­porter said.

Fyz­abad Cham­ber of Com­merce

An­ge­nie Jairam, pres­i­dent of the Fyz­abad Cham­ber of Com­merce, said its 70 mem­bers are fed up with the slow pace of con­tain­ers be­ing cleared. "It feels as though we can't turn to any­body to get any­thing re­solved. A lot of our mem­bers have lost busi­ness dur­ing the Christ­mas sea­son with this con­tin­u­ous de­lay. We have no oth­er choice but to shoul­der the cost and wait in frus­tra­tion."

Jairam, who im­ports med­ical equip­ment and am­bu­la­to­ry sup­plies, said a con­tain­er with goods ar­rived at the port in Point Lisas the first week in No­vem­ber last year. She had dif­fi­cul­ty get­ting a CES ap­point­ment date for the con­tain­ers to be un­stuffed. When things are held up, Jairam said pay­ing sup­pli­ers be­comes an is­sue.

Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber

Pres­i­dent of the Greater San Fer­nan­do Cham­ber of Com­merce Ki­ran Singh said when im­porters pay ad­di­tion­al fees, the cost of goods in­creas­es. "Apart from the de­mur­rage, rent, and over­time, we al­so have to pay trans­port to get the con­tain­ers to the im­porters' ware­house or premis­es so it can be in­spect­ed." Singh said he has been re­ceiv­ing com­plaints from its mem­bers. "We keep plead­ing that Cus­toms has to be­come more ef­fi­cient in ex­e­cut­ing their du­ties. We keep ask­ing that the ports be opened for longer hours."

Cou­va/Point Lisas Cham­ber

Cou­va/Point Lisas Cham­ber of Com­merce De­o­raj Ma­hase said the clo­sure of the CES "is not hav­ing any sig­nif­i­cant ef­fects on pro­cess­ing, re­lease and ap­point­ments" for con­tain­ers to be ex­am­ined on the im­porters' premis­es. How­ev­er, he said there are some chal­lenges with busi­ness­es not re­ceiv­ing con­tain­ers dur­ing nor­mal work­ing hours and for ex­am­i­na­tions to be done at their premis­es. Ma­hase said he hoped the Point Lisas CES would re­open soon.

Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­ber

Con­fed­er­a­tion of Re­gion­al Busi­ness Cham­ber chair­man Vivek Char­ran said when a con­tain­er has mul­ti­ple items, it's safer to have it ex­am­ined on the im­porters' premis­es or in a ware­house.

"While I com­plete­ly un­der­stand that there is a cost at­tached for the con­tain­er to be ex­am­ined on the im­porter's premis­es, the ben­e­fit is...it is much faster for it to be done out­side than on the port. Al­so, the cus­toms of­fi­cer can do a more thor­ough check." He said the im­porter would have to wait for the con­tain­er to be in­spect­ed at the ports. Char­ran agreed the ports' op­er­a­tions were in­ef­fi­cient.

Pres­i­dent of T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers As­so­ci­a­tion Roger Roach did not re­spond to a What­sApp mes­sage re­gard­ing com­plaints by man­u­fac­tur­ers pay­ing high­er fees and over­time charges.

An email was sent to Plipde­co's su­per­vi­sor of cor­po­rate com­mu­ni­ca­tions, Gizelle Crooks-Matthew, on Thurs­day ask­ing when the Point Lisas CES would be re­opened for busi­ness, but there was no re­sponse.

Chair­man of the Port Au­thor­i­ty of T&T Lyle Alexan­der said he was un­aware of a ro­dent in­fes­ta­tion on the port and the CES is­sue was out of his re­mit.