Blue Wave Harmony fails to depart PoS port

Stephon Nicholas

As con­cerns es­ca­late over the dis­rup­tion to the car­go ser­vice on the seabridge, To­ba­go busi­ness­es have suf­fered yet an­oth­er com­mer­cial blow.

The MV Blue Wave Har­mo­ny failed to set sail for Scar­bor­ough at the sched­uled 9.30 pm de­par­ture time yes­ter­day, leav­ing dozens of truck­ers - with their goods al­ready loaded - frus­trat­ed.

Ear­li­er that day, the Port Au­thor­i­ty de­fend­ed its man­age­ment of the seabridge since the Cabo Star ex­it­ed on Jan­u­ary 12. It out­lined the con­tin­gency mea­sures in place and not­ed the Blue Wave Har­mo­ny's sched­ule for the re­main­der of the month. Load­ing of the ves­sel was sched­uled from 10 am to 2 pm, with sail­ing sched­uled for sev­en and a half hours lat­er.

Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Jear­lean John to­day con­firmed to Guardian Me­dia that the ves­sel did not de­part Port of Spain, but said this was not ab­nor­mal. She said a press re­lease will in­di­cate when the ves­sel will fi­nal­ly set sail.

How­ev­er, for­mer Mi­nor­i­ty Leader Kelvon Mor­ris said he was "deeply con­cerned" by the litany of is­sues since the ves­sel ar­rived on Jan­u­ary 22.

He post­ed on Face­book, "We have now seen a trou­bling pat­tern. There was the re­port­ed dam­age while dock­ing in To­ba­go, the de­lay in dock­ing due to bad weath­er, the ear­li­er ramp arm fail­ure, and now the ves­sel’s in­abil­i­ty to de­part Port of Spain, af­fect­ing dozens of trucks and the wider sup­ply chain. This is no longer an iso­lat­ed is­sue. It is a se­ries of prob­lems that is plac­ing re­al strain on busi­ness­es, fam­i­lies, and the cost of liv­ing in To­ba­go."

Mor­ris said it is be­com­ing hard­er to source ba­sic items on the is­lands such as bread and but­ter.

"Imag­ine trucks loaded with per­ish­able goods such as meat and oth­er food items sit­ting in lim­bo. Who will com­pen­sate these busi­ness own­ers for loss­es in­curred? And what will be the long term im­pact on To­ba­go’s econ­o­my if this lev­el of dis­rup­tion con­tin­ues?"

He called on To­ba­go to put pol­i­tics aside as this was now a mat­ter of sur­vival.

Mor­ris said with re­ports of a US$25,000 per day lease for the ves­sel, a bet­ter ser­vice is to be ex­pect­ed.

"Are we get­ting val­ue for mon­ey from a ves­sel that in­creas­ing­ly ap­pears not fit for pur­pose?

"I am call­ing on the Gov­ern­ment to ur­gent­ly clar­i­fy the sta­tus of the car­go fer­ry pro­cure­ment process and to pro­vide a clear time­line for de­liv­ery. To­ba­go de­serves re­li­a­bil­i­ty, trans­paren­cy, and de­ci­sive ac­tion."

PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil leader An­cil Den­nis said he was keen­ly ob­serv­ing To­bag­o­ni­ans' re­ac­tion to the sit­u­a­tion.

"Since Jan­u­ary 12, To­ba­go has been with­out a re­li­able car­go ves­sel; a mat­ter that af­fects every shelf, every busi­ness, and every house­hold.

"Not a word from To­ba­go’s de­ci­sive­ly elect­ed lead­er­ship. Not a word from their friends in Trinidad. And more telling­ly, not a word from To­bag­o­ni­ans.

"I there­fore re­spect­ful­ly as­sume that the present sit­u­a­tion re­flects the stan­dard of ser­vice To­bag­o­ni­ans now find ac­cept­able. I will con­tin­ue to ob­serve."