An­drea Perez-Sobers

Se­nior Re­porter

an­drea.perez-sobers@guardian.co.tt

Frus­trat­ed cus­tomers are de­mand­ing an­swers af­ter Trin­ba­go Ex­press T&T Ltd abrupt­ly shut its doors, leav­ing bar­rels, box­es and con­tain­ers strand­ed at the port and the fate of goods worth hun­dreds of thou­sands of dol­lars un­cer­tain.

In a no­tice is­sued on Thurs­day, Trin­ba­go Ex­press T&T Ltd con­firmed that it has ceased op­er­a­tions due to “mount­ing chal­lenges” linked to the non-re­lease of car­go.

The com­pa­ny al­so an­nounced it sev­ered all ties with its New York af­fil­i­ate, Trin­ba­go Ex­press Ship­ping Inc., in­cor­po­rat­ed un­der US law.

While the lo­cal com­pa­ny in­sist­ed that it “acts sole­ly as the clear­ing and de­liv­ery arm with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go,” it ad­mit­ted that the over­seas pay­ment is­sues have left it un­able to re­lease goods to cus­tomers.

“Ship­ments des­tined for Trinidad and To­ba­go have ar­rived, but re­main un­re­leased at the ports, re­sult­ing in ac­cu­mu­lat­ing rental and de­mur­rage costs,” the re­lease stat­ed.

The com­pa­ny had op­er­at­ed of­fices in Cou­va and Port of Spain, both of which have since closed. Videos cir­cu­lat­ing on­line show sig­nage be­ing tak­en down and staff va­cat­ing the premis­es.

For months, cus­tomers say they’ve been caught in a web of shift­ing ex­pla­na­tions, unan­swered calls, and un­ful­filled promis­es, as ship­ments from the Unit­ed States to Trinidad and To­ba­go re­main un­re­leased.

“It’s been the same sto­ry every week, next week, next call, next up­date,” said one af­fect­ed cus­tomer, Ms. Joseph, who has been try­ing to re­cov­er her car­go since Jan­u­ary.

“We were told to wait for pa­per­work, then told some­one would call, and then told again that no in­for­ma­tion is avail­able. The back-and-forth is un­bear­able now.”

Ac­cord­ing to Joseph, re­peat­ed at­tempts to get clar­i­ty from the com­pa­ny’s Brook­lyn-based branch, Trin­ba­go Ex­press Ship­ping Inc, have gone nowhere. “We keep hear­ing that they’re work­ing with an agent to get the car­go re­leased, but no one can name the agent or say what’s re­al­ly hap­pen­ing. We just don’t be­lieve it any­more.”

An­oth­er cus­tomer, He­len Rivers, said she and oth­ers are los­ing pa­tience and faith that they will ever see their be­long­ings again.

“It’s hun­dreds of peo­ple af­fect­ed. Some have been wait­ing al­most a year. There’s a man who shipped down every­thing to open a restau­rant af­ter mi­grat­ing for 43 years, and it’s all stuck in the con­tain­er,” Rivers told Guardian Me­dia.

Ef­forts to con­tact Trin­ba­go Ex­press founder and CEO Pamela Lind­say proved fu­tile.