Farley begs Tobagonians for patience amid seabridge disruption

Akash Sama­roo and

Ot­to Car­ring­ton

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine is ask­ing To­bag­o­ni­ans for “pa­tience” and “grace” as the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly and Min­istry of Works at­tempt to ad­dress is­sues on the seabridge, as the MV Blue Wave Har­mo­ny re­mains out of ser­vice.

In­ter-is­land trans­porta­tion was hit a dou­ble blow last Fri­day when the MV Blue Wave Har­mo­ny, the new car­go ves­sel meant to re­place the Cabo Star, sus­tained dam­age to its hull while at­tempt­ing to berth at the Port of Scar­bor­ough in To­ba­go. Then on Sun­day (Feb­ru­ary 1), the T&T Spir­it en­coun­tered sig­nif­i­cant trou­ble and was with­drawn from ser­vice.

In a brief video post­ed to so­cial me­dia yes­ter­day, Au­gus­tine lament­ed, “It seems Mur­phy’s Law has tak­en up res­i­dence at the port late­ly. What­ev­er could go wrong, un­for­tu­nate­ly, has.”

Ac­knowl­edg­ing the re­sult­ing chal­lenges, the Chief Sec­re­tary said, “One of the most dis­ap­point­ing con­se­quences of these lo­gis­ti­cal hur­dles is the chal­lenge to host­ing the medi­um band fi­nals in To­ba­go. So, dis­cus­sions are well un­der­way be­tween Pan Trin­ba­go, NID­CO, the port and so forth.”

But he said more than that, the con­tin­ued im­pact on com­merce can­not go un­no­ticed.

“I am there­fore ask­ing for your grace and your pa­tience as we in the THA con­tin­ue to push and push and push and work along with the Min­istry of Works in Trinidad and Min­is­ter (Jear­lean) John who has been very kind to us to get these re­pairs done ex­pe­di­tious­ly so we can re­turn to nor­mal­cy.”

He said these agen­cies will pro­vide fur­ther up­dates as soon as as­sess­ments are com­plet­ed.

Mean­while, Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Jear­lean John yes­ter­day con­firmed that the T&T Spir­it had been tem­porar­i­ly with­drawn from ser­vice fol­low­ing tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ties, while as­sur­ing the pub­lic that the MV Blue Har­mo­ny is ex­pect­ed to re­turn to the seabridge lat­er this week.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia, John said the T&T Spir­it de­part­ed Trinidad at ap­prox­i­mate­ly 9.30 am with about 250 pas­sen­gers but ex­pe­ri­enced dif­fi­cul­ties while op­er­at­ing along the North Coast.

“While it was op­er­at­ing, based on what I’m told, they start­ed to ex­pe­ri­ence some tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ties. It got in­to Scar­bor­ough un­der what we call con­trolled con­di­tions,” she said.

Af­ter dock­ing safe­ly in To­ba­go, the ves­sel re­turned to Trinidad with­out pas­sen­gers, while the APT James was de­ployed to trans­port those af­fect­ed. The T&T Spir­it has since been with­drawn from ser­vice to al­low for a tech­ni­cal re­view and pos­si­ble en­gine re­pairs.

“We have with­drawn it to al­low for a tech­ni­cal re­view and per­haps re­pairs to its en­gine. Safe­ty is al­ways our pri­or­i­ty,” John em­pha­sised.

Asked whether the with­draw­al would af­fect in­ter-is­land trav­el, John ac­knowl­edged op­er­a­tional chal­lenges but re­as­sured the pub­lic, “Any ves­sel that is with­drawn at any time will cause us to re­or­gan­ise the sched­ule. But based on de­mand, we’ve en­sured that the oth­er two boats cur­rent­ly op­er­at­ing are work­ing a lit­tle over­time to meet pas­sen­ger needs.”

On the re­turn of car­go ves­sels and the MV Blue Har­mo­ny, John said, “We are await­ing word on the car­go boats to bring them back in­to ser­vice, fin­gers crossed, this week. The work is just be­ing con­clud­ed in To­ba­go.”

Ad­dress­ing ques­tions about whether Gov­ern­ment is con­sid­er­ing new ves­sels, she said the plan­ning be­gan ear­ly in her tenure.

“We con­sult­ed with stake­hold­ers — the peo­ple who use the ves­sel, the ship­pers, hauliers and they told us they want­ed a faster boat, more ca­pac­i­ty, and bet­ter ameni­ties,” she said, not­ing the MV Blue Wave Har­mo­ny met some of those re­quire­ments.

Look­ing ahead, John re­as­sured the pub­lic that ser­vice re­li­a­bil­i­ty re­mains the top pri­or­i­ty.

“Once we get it back on the seabridge this week, we should be able to man­age. What we are try­ing to do is en­sure an ef­fi­cient ser­vice, where sup­ply ex­ceeds de­mand and there is re­dun­dan­cy in the ser­vice. We are close­ly man­ag­ing the sit­u­a­tion, and we are do­ing okay. As you no­tice, we are com­mu­ni­cat­ing with the pub­lic and be­ing very trans­par­ent. Safe­ty and ser­vice con­ti­nu­ity re­main para­mount,” John said.