Kevon Felmine

The Cou­va/Point Lisas Cham­ber of Com­merce (CPLCC) sees the de­ci­sion to redi­rect car­go ves­sels to the Port of Point Lisas (PPL) as a vi­able tem­po­rary so­lu­tion dur­ing the im­passe at the Port of Port-of-Spain (PPOS) at the start of the week.

On Tues­day, Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port Ro­han Sinanan an­nounced that ships would be rerout­ed from PPOS to PPL to pre­vent a ma­jor shut­down of the coun­try’s op­er­a­tions. This de­ci­sion came as PPOS work­ers con­tin­ued their strike over salary ne­go­ti­a­tions and health and safe­ty con­cerns. The Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion not­ed un­con­firmed re­ports that more than 700 ship­ping con­tain­ers await­ing ex­port were “sit­ting on the port.”

In a re­lease yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, the PPOS in­formed its stake­hold­ers and cus­tomers that all ar­eas of the port were op­er­a­tional and thanked them for their “pa­tience and un­der­stand­ing.”

The PPOS stat­ed that Con­tain­er Ves­sel Op­er­a­tions, Con­tain­er Ter­mi­nal Op­er­a­tions, West Gate-Re­ceipt and De­liv­ery of Con­tain­ers, Shed 10-The One Stop Bar­rel Shop, Shed 4, and Spec­trum Op­er­a­tions were ful­ly func­tion­al.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia yes­ter­day, CPLCC pres­i­dent De­o­raj Ma­hase said PPL was ca­pa­ble of han­dling ad­di­tion­al car­go, as it has done in the past dur­ing dis­rup­tions at PPOS.

Ma­hase stat­ed that, as far as he knows, there is cur­rent­ly no ex­tend­ed wait­ing time for ves­sels to dock. He ex­plained that PPL main­tains a sched­ule for reg­u­lar ves­sels and can ac­com­mo­date ad­di­tion­al ones as space be­comes avail­able.

“From a na­tion­al per­spec­tive, I think the min­is­ter’s idea here is to try to al­le­vi­ate the sit­u­a­tion by get­ting car­go dis­charged and hav­ing ves­sels avail­able to load for ex­port. So at least, as a tem­po­rary mea­sure, it is a way to get things mov­ing,” Ma­hase said.

While the PPL is with­in the CPLCC dis­trict, Ma­hase not­ed that some mem­bers still re­ly on PPOS for im­ports, de­pend­ing on their sources. Con­se­quent­ly, any de­lays at PPOS af­fect busi­ness­es in the cen­tral re­gion, im­pact­ing lo­gis­tics and the time­ly de­liv­ery of goods to cus­tomers.

“We have had com­plaints from our mem­ber­ship that de­lays at Port-of-Spain are im­pact­ing them. I made a state­ment yes­ter­day (Tues­day) re­gard­ing this mat­ter, call­ing for a quick res­o­lu­tion be­cause it is af­fect­ing busi­ness­es at all lev­els,” Ma­hase said.

Greater San Fer­nan­do Area Cham­ber of Com­merce (GS­FCC) pres­i­dent Ki­ran Singh stressed that port op­er­a­tions are es­sen­tial for the econ­o­my’s sur­vival, par­tic­u­lar­ly as the Christ­mas sea­son ap­proach­es.

Singh be­lieves the ex­tra util­i­sa­tion of PPL will help clear and load con­tain­ers more ef­fi­cient­ly if in­dus­tri­al ac­tion con­tin­ues to dis­rupt PPOS. He added that in­ter­na­tion­al trade de­mands a 24/7 op­er­a­tion, sug­gest­ing that T&T’s ports should re­main open around the clock.

While ac­knowl­edg­ing the PPOS work­ers’ con­cerns over salaries and work­ing con­di­tions, Singh ex­pressed hope that ne­go­ti­a­tions would con­tin­ue with­out halt­ing port op­er­a­tions. He warned that the rev­enue loss re­sult­ing from their work stop­page might ul­ti­mate­ly re­duce the funds avail­able to meet their de­mands.

“We are aware that con­di­tions are not the best, but is the work ef­fi­cien­cy com­ing out of the port work­force at the best stan­dard?” Singh ques­tioned.

“We hear nu­mer­ous com­plaints about in­ef­fi­cien­cies at the port from a labour stand­point, and we ex­pect that to be ad­dressed as they seek to in­crease their salaries and wages.”

Mean­while, Cou­va South MP Rudranath In­dars­ingh an­nounced that the Unit­ed Na­tion­al Con­gress stands in sol­i­dar­i­ty with PPOS work­ers.

In a state­ment, In­dars­ingh crit­i­cised the Gov­ern­ment for its lack of re­gard to­ward these work­ers, ex­press­ing frus­tra­tion with Prime Min­is­ter Dr Kei­th Row­ley, Sinanan, PATT chair­man Lyle Alexan­der, and oth­ers for fail­ing to re­solve the work­ers’ con­cerns.

“The fact that port work­ers feel com­pelled to protest in the few weeks lead­ing to the Christ­mas sea­son—one of the busiest com­mer­cial pe­ri­ods in the coun­try—is a di­rect re­flec­tion of the en­vi­ron­ment that now threat­ens the well-be­ing of work­ers and busi­ness­es alike,” In­dars­ingh said.