STEPHON NICHOLAS

To­ba­go Cor­re­spon­dent

Min­is­ter of Works and In­fra­struc­ture Jear­lean John has clar­i­fied that any cur­rent short­age of goods in To­ba­go is un­re­lat­ed to the MV Blue Har­mo­ny, which is sched­uled to be­gin its maid­en com­mer­cial voy­age in four days.

John was at the Port of Port-of-Spain on Mon­day night over­see­ing the Port Au­thor­i­ty as it “cleared the yard” of car­go bound for To­ba­go. She had vis­it­ed the port ear­li­er in the day and in­struct­ed that the ramp re­main down un­til 9 pm—30 min­utes be­fore de­par­ture—to ac­com­mo­date late ar­rivals.

Ac­cord­ing to Port Au­thor­i­ty CEO Mar­cia Charles-El­bourne, in a video re­leased by the min­istry, 185 trucks and flatbeds, along with five 20-foot con­tain­ers, were sent to Scar­bor­ough.

“Every­thing that came went on board? You left back no­body?” John asked.

“We cleared the yard,” Charles-El­bourne replied.

Dur­ing her in­spec­tion on­board, John ob­served sand, bricks, grav­el, and oth­er goods loaded for To­ba­go.

“To­ba­go busi­ness is good busi­ness,” she said, dis­miss­ing crit­i­cism of the car­go ser­vice. “If there is a short­age, it means there need to be more sup­pli­ers in To­ba­go.”

John had ear­li­er de­scribed the US$25,000-per-day car­go ves­sel as a “beast” ca­pa­ble of “tak­ing every­thing” aboard.

Guardian Me­dia vis­it­ed Scar­bor­ough yes­ter­day morn­ing, where the port was bustling as trucks dis­em­barked and of­floaded goods, ag­gre­gates, hard­ware ma­te­ri­als, and oth­er sup­plies.

At Singh’s Hard­ware on Mil­ford Road, Scar­bor­ough, in­com­ing ma­te­ri­als quick­ly dis­ap­peared from the shelves. The own­er told Guardian Me­dia that 18 pal­lets of ce­ment ar­rived on the fer­ry around 8 am, and by 10.30 am, half had al­ready been sold.

He dis­agreed with the min­is­ter’s claim that the MV Blue Har­mo­ny was un­re­lat­ed to sup­ply short­ages. He ex­plained that while the Cabo Star pre­vi­ous­ly ar­rived around 8 pm and de­part­ed three hours lat­er, the new ves­sel docks around 8 am and leaves at 2 pm, dur­ing peak busi­ness hours.

This sched­ule has dis­rupt­ed his op­er­a­tions, re­quir­ing all de­liv­ery dri­vers to be present at the port to of­fload goods and in­cur­ring ex­tra ex­pens­es from hir­ing ad­di­tion­al dri­vers. He be­lieves that re­vert­ing to the pre­vi­ous sail­ing sched­ule would re­solve these is­sues.

Re­gard­ing Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine’s sug­ges­tion of com­pen­sa­tion for busi­ness­es af­fect­ed by de­lays, the own­er ques­tioned what form such com­pen­sa­tion would take.

“That is talk. Are they go­ing to of­fer cash or a free sail­ing on the car­go boat? What does com­pen­sa­tion mean?” he said.

At Wendy’s Taste De Dif­fer­ence restau­rant, the own­er urged oth­er small busi­ness op­er­a­tors to speak out. She said the short­age of goods has forced her to pay high­er prices, which has neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed her sales.

“Some­times you aren’t get­ting goods on time. Some­times you have to check three or four dif­fer­ent places be­fore you get the item,” she said. She added that when the fer­ry’s sched­ule is dis­rupt­ed, she is forced to buy from lo­cal To­ba­go sup­pli­ers at high­er rates and called for the MV Blue Har­mo­ny to be re­placed with a more suit­able ves­sel.

The MV Blue 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, de­lay­ing its maid­en com­mer­cial sail­ing.

Min­is­ter of Trans­port Eli Za­k­our, speak­ing on be­half of John dur­ing Ur­gent Ques­tions in the Sen­ate yes­ter­day, said the ves­sel will op­er­ate on a week­ly sched­ule when it be­gins com­mer­cial ser­vice on Sun­day, sub­ject to the com­ple­tion of op­er­a­tional and safe­ty as­sess­ments.

The boat is still un­der­go­ing sea tri­als, with night berthing ex­er­cis­es sched­uled to start to­day.

The TT Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce on Fri­day warned of the eco­nom­ic im­pact of the dis­rupt­ed seabridge, cit­ing ris­ing op­er­a­tional costs and pres­sure on busi­ness­es to main­tain prices.

Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine al­so re­vealed that Stud­ley Park En­ter­pris­es Ltd was fac­ing dif­fi­cul­ties ob­tain­ing a sup­ply of bi­tu­men from Trinidad for its quar­ry op­er­a­tions.