There is con­flict­ing in­for­ma­tion about the last time the Port of Port-of-Spain was dredged. Ac­cord­ing to Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port Ro­han Sinanan, the port was last cleared in 2000, which is ap­prox­i­mate­ly 20 years ago.

“This dredg­ing was long over­due,” Sinanan said

“This was due since 2013, un­for­tu­nate­ly, three ten­ders were abort­ed,” Sinanan con­tin­ued.

But for­mer Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port Jack Warn­er said when he was in of­fice (2010-2012) the port was dredged in 2011 by a lo­cal com­pa­ny. He said be­fore that dredg­ing was done in 2005.

“It was dredged by a com­pa­ny called Kard­way Con­trac­tors,” Warn­er said.

“I don’t want to get in any ban­ter with the min­is­ter but that is the fact,” he con­tin­ued.

How­ev­er, like Sinanan, Warn­er be­lieves that dredg­ing of the port is long over­due. He said ide­al­ly the port should be cleared every two years.

A Dutch com­pa­ny called Dutch Dredg­ing won the bid for the project and is cur­rent­ly work­ing 24/7 to get the job done by month’s end.

“This con­tract should be com­plet­ed by the end of Jan­u­ary,” Sinanan said.

The project cost the Gov­ern­ment 60 mil­lion dol­lars but ac­cord­ing to Sinanan, there may be some cost-cut­ting. The Works Min­is­ter said be­cause dredg­ing was not done for so long the To­ba­go Car­go ves­sel was not able to op­er­ate where it was sup­posed to. How­ev­er, the min­is­ter said af­ter this project is com­plet­ed the port would be able to ac­com­mo­date all the in­ter-is­land pas­sen­ger and car­go ves­sels in­clud­ing the new ves­sels sched­uled to be built lat­er this year.

Sinanan said dredg­ing is an on­go­ing ex­er­cise and be­cause it wasn’t done for so long it pre­vent­ed some ves­sels from com­ing in­to T&T.

“We do have large ves­sels who want to come in­to Trinidad and they can’t be­cause of the amount of silt built up,” Sinanan said.

“The long term plan is for all the To­ba­go ves­sels to berth here to free up the port for in­ter­na­tion­al car­go and cruise ships,” he con­tin­ued.

In a press con­fer­ence af­ter the Dredger ship tour, the Min­is­ter and Of­fi­cials at the Port Au­thor­i­ty an­nounced that the MV Jean De la Valette which start­ed ser­vic­ing the sea-bridge in Ju­ly 2019 will go for main­te­nance from Jan­u­ary 24th to Feb­ru­ary 4th.

In its ab­sence, two pas­sen­ger ves­sels the Galleons Pas­sage and T&T spir­its will work the Trinidad and To­ba­go route.

The min­is­ter al­so an­nounced that the port is cur­rent­ly in ne­go­ti­a­tions to up­grade the equip­ment used there.