STEPHON NICHOLAS

GML To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

PNM To­ba­go Coun­cil leader Sham­fa Cud­joe-Lewis has con­demned the treat­ment of truck­ers aboard the MV Gold­en Car­ri­er.

The car­go ves­sel re­placed the MV Blue Wave Har­mo­ny on the do­mes­tic seabridge at the end of Ju­ly. The lat­ter was with­drawn from ser­vice to un­der­go main­te­nance and up­grades. Both ves­sels fall un­der the same US$25,000 per day con­tract.

De­spite be­ing hailed as the su­pe­ri­or ves­sel by the Port Au­thor­i­ty since its ar­rival in Ju­ly, truck­ers con­tin­ue to ex­pe­ri­ence chal­lenges with their per­son­al ac­com­mo­da­tion.

A video post­ed to so­cial me­dia showed truck­ers sleep­ing on the floor dur­ing the sev­en-hour in­ter­is­land jour­ney.

In a Face­book post on Tues­day, Cud­joe-Lewis called on the Port Au­thor­i­ty to ex­plain why cab­ins are yet to be reg­u­larised.

"Why are our hard­work­ing truck­ers, busi­ness­men, hus­bands and sons be­ing re­duced to this? Our hard­work­ing men who must trav­el overnight to keep To­ba­go’s busi­ness­es sup­plied and our econ­o­my mov­ing are hid­ing to bring sheets, mat­tress­es and air beds aboard the ves­sel just to get some rest," she said.

She claimed the au­thor­i­ties al­so in­struct­ed the truck­ers not to sleep on the floor.

"So where ex­act­ly are they sup­posed to sleep? In those hard chairs from 11pm to 6am?" she asked.

The for­mer To­ba­go West MP al­so ac­cused the To­ba­go House of As­sem­bly (THA) of be­ing silent while To­bag­o­ni­ans are dis­re­spect­ed.

"Our THA ad­min­is­tra­tion and their UNC friends in Trinidad told To­bag­o­ni­ans that this ves­sel was an im­prove­ment. The Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port would now have us be­lieve that what we are ex­pe­ri­enc­ing is some­how nor­mal."

She said To­ba­go de­serves re­li­able trans­porta­tion, val­ue for mon­ey and dig­ni­ty and re­spect. She called on Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine and To­ba­go MPs David Thomas (East) and Joel Samp­son (West) to ad­dress the mat­ter.

"Some­body has to stand up for To­ba­go. Some­body has to speak up for our peo­ple. And bet your bot­tom dol­lar I will. The PNM will. And right-think­ing To­bag­o­ni­ans should not be afraid to speak up too."

Guardian Me­dia spoke to a truck­er on Wednes­day who said he was in­formed some cab­ins might be ready for to­day's sail­ing.

Guardian Me­dia sent ques­tions to the Port Au­thor­i­ty and Au­gus­tine about the sit­u­a­tion, but there was no re­sponse up to pub­li­ca­tion.