Geisha Kow­lessar

In the midst of port of­fi­cers con­tin­u­ing their protest ac­tion yes­ter­day by not work­ing any ad­di­tion­al hours, some mem­bers of the pub­lic are now call­ing for the mat­ter to be speed­i­ly set­tled, giv­en claims that sail­ings were tak­ing place with­out the pres­ence of any port of­fi­cers on board the ves­sels.

One pas­sen­ger said yes­ter­day it was "ridicu­lous" that the mat­ter had been drag­ging on for so long es­pe­cial­ly as it ap­peared that the pub­lic was at some risk.

Pres­i­dent of the Es­tate Po­lice As­so­ci­a­tion Branch of the Port Au­thor­i­ty, Richard Ryan, said it was in fact true that sail­ings were tak­ing place with­out port of­fi­cers, adding that it was a de­ci­sion tak­en by man­age­ment.

"We have all sorts of crime tak­ing place and added to that is hu­man traf­fick­ing and it is very dan­ger­ous to have ves­sels sail with­out any of­fi­cers on board at all.

"Any­body could be car­ry­ing any­thing in their ve­hi­cles. What has been hap­pen­ing and even up to this morn­ing (yes­ter­day) is that the ves­sels have been sail­ing with­out any port po­lice pres­ence and that is a se­ri­ous se­cu­ri­ty breach and man­age­ment would have tak­en that de­ci­sion," Ryan said.

He said of­fi­cers were tired of the same ex­cus­es when­ev­er dis­cus­sions were held with the port's man­age­ment and were de­mand­ing that monies owed be im­me­di­ate­ly paid.The union met with man­age­ment last Fri­day but Ryan said it was the ini­tia­tive of the of­fi­cers.

"Ba­si­cal­ly noth­ing came out of that meet­ing. They would have told us the same thing they have been telling us which is that they have writ­ten to the per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Works Min­istry to in­ter­vene through the Chief Per­son­nel Of­fi­cer.

"What we would have told them is we are look­ing for com­mit­ment re­gard­ing a time­line for pay­ment," Ryan added.He said the union sent a let­ter on Mon­day to Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Fitzger­ald Hinds seek­ing a meet­ing but was yet to re­ceive a re­sponse.

"In the mean­time, once three o' clock in the evening reach­es, of­fi­cers have de­cid­ed that they are not work­ing any over­time at all and mem­bers of the pub­lic will see the im­pact of that es­pe­cial­ly lat­er on in the week," Ryan added.

An­oth­er is­sue he said which was al­so wor­ry­ing was the short­age of of­fi­cers at the port which re­sult­ed in them work­ing lengthy over­time hours.

When con­tact­ed Bet­ty Ann Gib­bons, pub­lic re­la­tions man­ag­er of the Port Au­thor­i­ty, said man­age­ment was await­ing guide­lines from the CPO as to how to pro­ceed re­gard­ing out­stand­ing monies.She said un­til this was done on­ly then could the mat­ter be set­tled.

Ef­forts to con­tact the chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer of the T&T Fer­ry Ser­vice, Leon Grant, and pub­lic re­la­tions of­fi­cer Vel­ma Lewis-Cock­burn re­gard­ing claims of se­cu­ri­ty breach­es were un­suc­cess­ful as nei­ther an­swered their cell phones. Mes­sages left were al­so not re­turned.