Jesse Ramdeo

Se­nior Re­porter

jesse.ramdeo@cnc3.co.tt

Op­po­si­tion Leader Pen­ne­lope Beck­les is urg­ing the Gov­ern­ment to pro­vide clear ex­pla­na­tions for re­port­ed short­age of goods in To­ba­go, in­sist­ing that com­plaints from res­i­dents and busi­ness­es can­not be dis­missed.

Speak­ing at a me­dia brief­ing yes­ter­day, Beck­les said the is­sue re­quires ur­gent at­ten­tion.

“The truth is, whether this Gov­ern­ment ac­cepts it or not, there is a prob­lem. The peo­ple in To­ba­go are com­plain­ing, and it is their re­spon­si­bil­i­ty to fix that prob­lem,” she said.

Her com­ments come days af­ter Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Jear­lean John sought to dis­tance the new car­go ves­sel, the MV Blue Wave Har­mo­ny, from any sup­ply dis­rup­tions on the is­land. John said on Tues­day that cur­rent short­ages in To­ba­go are un­re­lat­ed to the ves­sel, which is sched­uled to be­gin its maid­en com­mer­cial voy­age soon.

How­ev­er, at least one To­ba­go busi­ness own­er has dis­put­ed that claim. A hard­ware store op­er­a­tor said changes in the sail­ing sched­ule have di­rect­ly af­fect­ed his op­er­a­tions. He ex­plained that the Cabo Star pre­vi­ous­ly ar­rived around 8 pm and de­part­ed about three hours lat­er, al­low­ing goods to be processed out­side peak busi­ness hours. In con­trast, the Blue Wave Har­mo­ny now docks around 8 am and leaves at 2 pm, dur­ing the busiest part of the work­day.

Ac­cord­ing to the busi­ness­man, the re­vised sched­ule has forced him to di­vert de­liv­ery dri­vers to the port to of­fload car­go, dis­rupt­ing store op­er­a­tions and in­creas­ing ex­pens­es due to the need for ad­di­tion­al staff.

Beck­les said the Gov­ern­ment must ac­knowl­edge and ad­dress the con­cerns be­ing raised.

“We do re­call that some years ago, when there was an is­sue, the Ho­n­ourable Prime Min­is­ter at the time, Dr Kei­th Christo­pher Row­ley, went be­fore a Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee be­cause there had been prob­lems in the past. He made him­self avail­able to ad­dress the is­sues and to en­sure that these mat­ters would be prop­er­ly ad­dressed,” she said.

She added: “We are ask­ing the Gov­ern­ment to ad­dress this mat­ter ur­gent­ly and not sim­ply say that there isn’t a prob­lem or that the prob­lem is one of sup­ply.”

The MV Blue Wave Har­mo­ny has been un­der scruti­ny since its ar­rival on Jan­u­ary 22, fol­low­ing me­chan­i­cal is­sues and an in­ci­dent near the To­ba­go jet­ty that dam­aged its hull and de­layed its maid­en com­mer­cial sail­ing.

Min­is­ter of Trans­port Eli Za­k­our, speak­ing on be­half of John dur­ing Ur­gent Ques­tions in the Sen­ate on Tues­day, said the ves­sel is ex­pect­ed to op­er­ate on a week­ly sched­ule when com­mer­cial ser­vice be­gins on Sun­day, pend­ing com­ple­tion of all op­er­a­tional and safe­ty as­sess­ments.

Mean­while, the Trinidad and To­ba­go Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce warned last Fri­day of the eco­nom­ic im­pact of dis­rup­tions to the seabridge, cit­ing ris­ing op­er­a­tional costs and mount­ing pres­sure on busi­ness­es to ab­sorb ex­pens­es to main­tain sta­ble prices.

Beck­les main­tains that the Gov­ern­ment must pro­vide trans­paren­cy and prac­ti­cal so­lu­tions to en­sure To­ba­go’s sup­ply chain re­mains sta­ble and re­li­able.