LOYSE VIN­CENT

Chief Sec­re­tary An­cil Den­nis says there will not be a re­peat of mis­takes made in the past as the gov­ern­ment will take steps to main­tain and se­cure the new in­ter­is­land fer­ries. While speak­ing to the me­dia at the Scar­bor­ough Port yes­ter­day, Den­nis was among a group of THA sec­re­taries who went to the port to ac­knowl­edge the ar­rival of the first of two new fast fer­ries, the APT James.

The cus­tom-built in­ter­is­land fer­ry stopped for a brief mo­ment in the wa­ters off the port of Scar­bor­ough. Show­ing off its ca­pa­bil­i­ties the APT James quick­ly made sev­er­al turns in the ocean and blast­ed its horns be­fore mak­ing its way to its fi­nal des­ti­na­tion at Trinidad.

In 2018 the gov­ern­ment was heav­i­ly crit­i­cised for what many called the col­lapse of the in­ter­is­land sea bridge. At that time the T&T Spir­it, which was on dry dock for sev­er­al months, and the T&T Ex­press, which had to be pulled from ser­vice af­ter sev­er­al me­chan­i­cal is­sues, were ser­vic­ing the route.

The T&T Ex­press was al­so sched­uled to go on dry dock for main­te­nance. In 2019 the ves­sel was put up for sale on ac­count of the ves­sel be­ing 20 years old and re­quir­ing sig­nif­i­cant sums for re­pair.

Chief Sec­re­tary An­cil Den­nis, said lessons were learned from the ex­pe­ri­ences of the past.

“All of us knew that the is­sues we had back then were due to a lack of main­te­nance of the pre­vi­ous ves­sels and the gov­ern­ment is com­mit­ted to en­sure that these ves­sels are main­tained and to en­sure that they are safe from sabo­teurs so we will have the ser­vice of these ves­sels for many years to come.”

Head of the To­ba­go Coun­cil of the PNM, Tra­cy David­son Ce­les­tine who is al­so Sec­re­tary for Health Well­ness and Fam­i­ly De­vel­op­ment said the de­liv­ery of the APT James il­lus­trates that a PNM led cen­tral gov­ern­ment and THA en­sures that the is­land’s de­vel­op­ment re­mains on track. She al­so re­spond­ed to ac­cu­sa­tions that the ar­rival of the ves­sel co­in­cides with the THA elec­tions to se­cure votes.

“I would rub­bish that state­ment for some time now we have been talk­ing about how we can en­sure that To­ba­go self-de­ter­mines and the peo­ple are equipped with the nec­es­sary sources in or­der to make that a re­al­i­ty.”

When op­er­a­tionalised the APT James will join the T&T Spir­it, the Galleons Pas­sage and the gov­ern­ment leased Jean De La Val­let, which amounts to a to­tal ca­pac­i­ty of 3,291 seats and ac­com­mo­da­tion for 686 cars on the in­ter­is­land sea bridge. The Cabo Star is al­so ser­vic­ing the route, which is the des­ig­nat­ed car­go ves­sel. How­ev­er, when the lease of the Jean De La Val­let ends mid-2021, the to­tal ca­pac­i­ty will be re­duced to 2,491 and 530 re­spec­tive­ly.

The ves­sel was named af­ter Alphon­so Philbert Theophilus James, a famed rights ac­tivist who had served in Trinidad and To­ba­go’s leg­isla­tive coun­cil. Its over­all cost is US$73.55 mil­lion dol­lars, and it is the first of two cus­tom-built ves­sels be­ing built by the gov­ern­ment to ser­vice the route. The sec­ond ves­sel the “Buc­coo Reef” is sched­uled for de­liv­ery with­in the next month.