Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Trans­port Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj said more than $100 mil­lion is spent an­nu­al­ly by tax­pay­ers to keep the Port of Port-of-Spain op­er­a­tional. He said it is not be­ing run as an eco­nom­i­cal­ly vi­able port. How­ev­er, pres­i­dent of the Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers' Trade Union (SWW­TU) Michael An­nisette said the min­is­ter is mis­in­formed and the deficit was about $36 mil­lion to $40 mil­lion. An­nisette said op­er­a­tions at the port were prof­itable and the deficit on­ly came about when cer­tain ar­eas which did not gen­er­ate rev­enue were in­clud­ed. Speak­ing to re­porters dur­ing a press con­fer­ence on Mon­day at the min­istry's of­fice, Tow­er D, of the Wa­ter­front Com­plex, Port-of-Spain, Ma­haraj said the port had to be­come eco­nom­i­cal­ly vi­able.

Chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the Port Au­thor­i­ty of T&T Col­in Lu­cas and vice-pres­i­dent Suresh Gan­gaper­sad were al­so present. Ma­haraj said: "The union and the man­age­ment con­tin­ue to di­a­logue with solv­ing this im­passe (protest) with a pro­pos­al and counter-pro­pos­al on the ta­ble but they are ap­pre­cia­tive of the fact that the Port of Port-of-Spain is heav­i­ly sub­sidised by the tax­pay­ers of Trinidad and To­ba­go. "Over $100 mil­lion an­nu­al­ly is spent by tax­pay­ers to keep the Port of Port-of-Spain go­ing." He said the port's eco­nom­ics have to be re­vis­it­ed. He said one of the man­dates of the board was to de­vel­op strate­gies to "break even" in the short­est pos­si­ble time. Ma­haraj said the last ad­min­is­tra­tion was ex­pert at los­ing mon­ey.

Lu­cas said the port made "healthy sur­plus­es" from 1995 to cir­ca 2004. Ma­haraj said it was not an easy fix to move away from the "squan­der­ma­nia" and a "decade of deca­dence." He added: "It is not an easy fix be­cause peo­ple would have be­come ad­dict­ed to cash with­out pro­duc­tiv­i­ty and per­for­mance and ex­pec­ta­tions of cer­tain things. "The fix will not be easy but that will not de­ter the board and man­age­ment from fix­ing it nonethe­less." Ma­haraj said all op­tions to make the port vi­able would be ex­plored, in­clud­ing rates, op­er­a­tions, equip­ment, lo­gis­tics and pro­duc­tiv­i­ty.

How­ev­er, An­nisette said Ma­haraj failed to say that out of the $100 mil­lion, there were costs which had noth­ing to do with port op­er­a­tions. He added: "The costs have to do with debt ser­vices, de­pre­ci­a­tion and all oth­er is­sues that are nec­es­sary. When you fac­tor that in, we could be look­ing at $36 mil­lion to $40 mil­lion deficit as op­posed to the $100 mil­lion." He said the op­er­a­tions of the port "by them­selves" were prof­itable.

He said there were ar­eas on the port which were not rev­enue ar­eas which were part of the bud­get. "When you are telling the sto­ry, tell the true, true sto­ry," he said.