Derek Achong

Se­nior Re­porter

derek.achong@guardian.co.tt

Mea­sures have been im­ple­ment­ed to help al­le­vi­ate de­lays that are ex­pect­ed to be caused by the pres­ence of USS Grave­ly at the Port of Port-of-Spain this week.

The mea­sures, in­clud­ing the tem­po­rary op­tion­al redi­rec­tion and pro­cess­ing of ves­sels and car­go at the Port of Point Lisas, were an­nounced in a joint press re­lease from the Cus­toms and Ex­cise Di­vi­sion, the Port Au­thor­i­ty of T&T (PATT) and the Point Lisas In­dus­tri­al Port De­vel­op­ment Cor­po­ra­tion Lim­it­ed (Plipde­co) which co­in­cid­ed with the ar­rival of the Unit­ed States (US) guid­ed mis­sile de­stroy­er yes­ter­day morn­ing.

It said, “This mea­sure en­sures that Ship­ping Lines, Agents and Ship­pers who choose to utilise this op­tion for cus­tomers to re­ceive their car­go as an­tic­i­pat­ed.”

It said that the or­gan­i­sa­tions were col­lab­o­rat­ing to en­sure the seam­less berthing, car­go han­dling, and doc­u­men­ta­tion process­es if the op­tion is utilised.

“Be ad­vised that the Port of Port-of-Spain has for­ward­ed all rel­e­vant in­for­ma­tion to the Port of Point Lisas, and in­ter­est­ed agents have been pro­vid­ed their ves­sel de­tails and are now in­clud­ed in the ves­sel sched­ule at the Port of Point Lisas,” it said.

It al­so said that ac­com­mo­da­tions had been made for the trans­fer of trans­ship­ment con­tain­ers, which are cur­rent­ly wait­ing to be ex­port­ed from the Port-of-Spain Port to Point Lisas.

“The Port of Point Lisas has ex­tend­ed its gate hours op­er­a­tions to ac­com­mo­date all re­quests for ser­vice,” it said.

It not­ed that cus­toms of­fi­cers had been de­ployed to sup­port ad­di­tion­al in­spec­tion and clear­ance op­er­a­tions at both ports dur­ing the pe­ri­od.

“The teams have worked close­ly to en­sure the ef­fi­cient ac­com­mo­da­tion of all ves­sels and to main­tain the in­tegri­ty of car­go flows across both ports,” it said.

Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia hours be­fore the an­nounce­ment was made, T&T Man­u­fac­tur­ers’ As­so­ci­a­tion (TTMA) pres­i­dent Dale Par­son pre­dict­ed po­ten­tial de­lays due to the ves­sel’s vis­it and called on port of­fi­cials to take some of the steps that were even­tu­al­ly im­ple­ment­ed.

While he sug­gest­ed the op­tion of redi­rec­tion to the Point Lisas Port, he ques­tioned whether it (Point Lisas) could ac­com­mo­date the ad­di­tion­al ca­pac­i­ty, even tem­porar­i­ly.

He al­so not­ed that port users with ex­ist­ing arrange­ments with the Port-of-Spain Port would have to in­cur ad­di­tion­al fees as­so­ci­at­ed with the trans­fer of con­tain­ers and us­age of the Point Lisas Port.

“Even if redi­rect­ed, I don’t think Point Lisas can han­dle the vol­ume with one crane op­er­a­tional,” he said.

Par­son al­so rec­om­mend­ed that the Port-of-Spain Port con­sid­er waiv­ing the costs as­so­ci­at­ed with stor­ing ship­ping con­tain­ers that can­not be cleared or ex­port­ed dur­ing the pe­ri­od.

“Any port rent that would have been ac­crued be­cause of im­ports sit­ting there or ex­ports not be­ing able to go out should be borne by the port,” he said.

In a brief tele­phone in­ter­view, Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) pres­i­dent Gre­go­ry Aboud not­ed that he and his mem­bers did not have any im­me­di­ate con­cerns over de­lays on the port.

Prais­ing the re­cent work of port and cus­toms of­fi­cials, Aboud said that op­er­a­tions at the Port-of-Spain Port had im­proved dras­ti­cal­ly over the past few months in time for the up­com­ing Christ­mas sea­son.

“We are in the midst of some­thing very ma­jor tak­ing place, and we need to be a lit­tle cau­tious, in my opin­ion, on what the im­pact is go­ing to be,” Aboud said.

“We are not re­al­ly hear­ing the bit­ing type of com­plaints we heard in 2024 when ac­tion on the port cre­at­ed hav­oc and chaos for the coun­try,” he added.

Aboud al­so dis­missed con­cerns over po­ten­tial ad­di­tion­al costs as­so­ci­at­ed with ship­ping de­lays.

“In truth and in fact if a ves­sel is de­layed in com­ing in­to the port no de­mur­rage can ap­ply and in the same way if a con­tain­er is re­turned to the port and it can­not be loaded on a out­go­ing ves­sel no de­mur­rage can ap­ply be­cause as soon as the emp­ty or full con­tain­er is re­turned to the port the de­mur­rage ceas­es im­me­di­ate­ly be­cause the con­tain­er has been re­turned to the ship’s pos­ses­sion,” he said.

The USS Grave­ly is sched­uled to re­main at the port un­til Thurs­day. Dur­ing the vis­it, the 22nd US Ma­rine Ex­pe­di­tionary Unit is ex­pect­ed to con­duct joint train­ing ex­er­cis­es with the T&T De­fence Force (TTDF).