Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine fears To­ba­go may face an­oth­er eco­nom­ic set­back af­ter a fire broke out in the Cabo Star’s en­gine room yes­ter­day, ground­ing the ves­sel and adding to the is­land’s chal­lenges fol­low­ing Feb­ru­ary’s oil spill, a Ju­ly shark at­tack, and a record-high mur­der toll.

Yes­ter­day’s in­ci­dent comes just three days be­fore the an­niver­sary of a fire that oc­curred in the iden­ti­cal com­part­ment of one of the Cabo Star en­gine rooms on Au­gust 23, 2023. This has prompt­ed an in­ves­ti­ga­tion by the Port Au­thor­i­ty of T&T.

Au­gus­tine and the To­ba­go Cham­ber are con­cerned that this lat­est in­ci­dent forc­ing the ves­sel off the seabridge could neg­a­tive­ly af­fect the is­land’s econ­o­my.

For them, it is a night­mare they do not want to re­peat. They hope the is­land will not have to en­dure hard­ship a sec­ond time, es­pe­cial­ly since the last fire threw the is­land in­to a food cri­sis, leav­ing busi­ness­es still reel­ing from the loss­es.

Af­ter the fire last year, the ves­sel was out of ser­vice for three weeks. Dur­ing that pe­ri­od, To­ba­go re­port­ed­ly ran out of wa­ter, flour, toi­let pa­per, beer, bread, an­i­mal feed, and build­ing ma­te­ri­als.

Au­gus­tine yes­ter­day said To­ba­go could not bear an­oth­er blow to its econ­o­my.

“We had a rough year be­cause it was an oil spill, then a shark at­tack, and sev­er­al things in the space that chal­lenged our abil­i­ty to earn. At this point, we hope to get Oc­to­ber Car­ni­val off the ground, that we will ex­ceed last year’s gain,” Au­gus­tine said.

He said there were fears of not know­ing what was ahead.

“We re­al­ly don’t know. We are all in a place of not know­ing what will hap­pen, and that’s not a good place to be at this time. We are hope­ful that the mat­ter will be rec­ti­fied soon,” he said.

“I would imag­ine the To­ba­go busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty would pan­ic be­cause we are still un­cer­tain how the mat­ter will be dealt with and how swift­ly it will be dealt with.”

While he did not want to spec­u­late, Au­gus­tine hopes a thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion brings what is in the dark to light.

“It has to be fig­ured out; whether it was ac­ci­den­tal, an act of man, or whether it was some­one just try­ing to de­stroy the ves­sel.

“We are no less wor­ried about the re­al­i­ty that we may just not have a ves­sel for a lit­tle while.”

Cham­ber boss de­mands thor­ough probe

“This is un­be­liev­able!”

These words were used to de­scribe the news of a fire on board the Cabo Star, just two months be­fore To­ba­go’s Oc­to­ber Car­ni­val—a crit­i­cal pe­ri­od for the is­land’s busi­ness sec­tor.

Cur­tis Williams, chair­man of the To­ba­go Di­vi­sion of the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce, said To­ba­go busi­ness­es have al­ready start­ed pan­ick­ing, re­call­ing last year’s fire that left ware­hous­es, hard­ware stores and su­per­mar­kets in lim­bo.

Williams said the is­land’s busi­ness­es are still reel­ing from the ef­fects of last year’s fire, with loss­es in the hun­dreds of thou­sands.

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia short­ly af­ter the In­ter-is­land Trans­porta­tion Ser­vice con­firmed the in­ci­dent, Williams said he had to pinch him­self.

“I was to­tal­ly shocked when I got the mes­sages and pho­tos. I de­mand a thor­ough in­ves­ti­ga­tion. This is un­be­liev­able, and who­ev­er is to be held ac­count­able must be held.

“My phone is ring­ing non-stop. The cham­ber has a meet­ing this af­ter­noon (Tues­day), and this is go­ing to be the biggest mat­ter. It’s dev­as­tat­ing al­ready for us.”

He is wor­ried about how this might af­fect busi­ness­es’ prepa­ra­tions for the up­com­ing Car­ni­val.

“From the in­for­ma­tion we re­ceived from the port, they al­ready can­not give us a time or any­thing. No one can tell us what’s go­ing on. I know there will be some set­backs.”

Williams said he now hopes there is a strate­gic plan to avoid a col­lapse of To­ba­go’s econ­o­my.

“The Galleons Pas­sage and oth­er ves­sels won’t help. Peo­ple were al­ready re­plen­ish­ing their ware­hous­es and hard­ware from what was used dur­ing the Ju­ly/Au­gust va­ca­tion. Lord, this is un­be­liev­able.”

Work and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan could not be reached for com­ment.