Yvonne Webb

St Vin­cent and the Grenadines Prime Min­is­ter Dr Ralph Gon­salves has wel­comed plans an­nounced by Trans­port Min­is­ter De­vant Ma­haraj to fast track the re­gion­al fer­ry ser­vice be­tween this coun­try and four south­ern Caribbean is­lands. He said he was even hap­pi­er about the pro­posed prices-be­tween US$25 and US$35 a per­son for the trip which will start in Trinidad, go to Grena­da, St Vin­cent, Bar­ba­dos and re­turn to Trinidad. He said he does not see the ini­tia­tive com­pet­ing with ei­ther Caribbean Air­lines (CAL) or LI­AT. How­ev­er, he said it pro­vides and op­por­tu­ni­ty for the dis­cus­sion on one Caribbean air car­ri­er.

Ma­haraj an­nounced at last Thurs­day's post-Cab­i­net meet­ing that the Gov­ern­ment had moved one step clos­er to mak­ing the fer­ry ser­vice a re­al­i­ty by con­tract­ing the ser­vices of FCL, a Bar­ba­dos-based con­sor­tium. Gon­salves, flew in­to Trinidad on Fri­day morn­ing to vis­it Patrick Man­ning, who is re­cov­er­ing from a mild stroke at the San Fer­nan­do Gen­er­al Hos­pi­tal (SFGH). Ad­dress­ing the is­sue of in­ter-is­land trans­porta­tion, Gon­salves re­called that the study for this project start­ed when Colm Im­bert was Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port. "I called a meet­ing of trans­port min­is­ters in St Vin­cent and we had dis­cussed air and sea trans­port." He said the Gov­ern­ment did com­mit to un­der­tak­ing the study and ini­tial fi­nanc­ing.

"I am over­joyed to see the new ad­min­is­tra­tion not just con­tin­u­ing, but de­vel­op­ing fur­ther and to a high­er lev­el this par­tic­u­lar pol­i­cy, to have a prac­ti­cal mean­ing and in­vi­ta­tion to the peo­ple of the re­gion." Gon­za­les said with the ini­tia­tive com­ing on stream, arrange­ments must now be worked out with the two re­gion­al air car­ri­ers, CAL and LI­AT. He said it will be dis­cussed when LI­AT share­hold­ers meet to­day. "We have to get to the bot­tom of CAL and LI­AT work­ing to­geth­er. Patrick Man­ning had a vi­sion for one Caribbean air­line, Pan­day had a vi­sion for one Caribbean air­line, and I know there are peo­ple in the Gov­ern­ment of T&T who have that vi­sion. "We have to turn that dream in­to a re­al­i­ty and we have to do it in a prac­ti­cal way," he said.

Gon­salves said it does not make sense for CAL to com­pete with LI­AT. "That would on­ly weak­en LI­AT," he said, adding that CAL has the ad­van­tage of pay­ing a sub­sidised US$50 a bar­rel for avi­a­tion fu­el, LI­AT pays US$110. "What we have to do is sit down and work out all the modal­i­ties and all the arrange­ments to de­liv­er the best qual­i­ty ser­vice by air to the peo­ple of the re­gion and to do it at the cheap­est pos­si­ble price with all the avail­able re­sources that we have."