Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Ro­han Sinanan is de­fend­ing an an­nounced de­ci­sion to re­move the op­er­a­tion of the fer­ry ser­vice from Port Au­thor­i­ty and place it in the hands of a pri­vate com­pa­ny.

He says it is not just about im­prov­ing the ef­fi­cien­cy of ser­vice not just on the seabridge but al­so part of a big­ger vi­sion which he has for trans­porta­tion in the coun­try us­ing the coastal wa­ters.

He ex­pects to have a plan from the Board of the Port Au­thor­i­ty in two weeks on the way for­ward.

Sinanan told Guardian Me­dia there were in­ef­fi­cien­cies at the Port which need­ed to be ad­dressed.

He said al­though there is a sep­a­rate com­pa­ny to run the seabridge, the Trinidad and To­ba­go In­ter-Is­land Trans­port com­pa­ny, (TTIT), “clear­ly it is not work­ing, it is the same board, the same man­agers, one board man­ag­ing every­thing and if you look at it, it is a co-min­gling of funds and every­thing else.”

Sinanan said this was not the “in­ten­tion when it was set up,” but ad­mit­ted he had “no idea,” why the sys­tem had not worked.

Sinanan said the Board of the Port Au­thor­i­ty is cur­rent­ly work­ing on a pre­sen­ta­tion re­lat­ing to the changed mod­el which will lead to the pri­vati­sa­tion of the seabridge.

He said he had been in­formed by Port Chair­man Lyle Alexan­der that the pre­sen­ta­tion will be ready “with­in two weeks.”

The plan will sub­se­quent­ly be tak­en to Cab­i­net for its ap­proval.

Sinanan said it may well be that em­ploy­ees of the Trinidad and To­ba­go In­ter-Is­land Trans­port com­pa­ny will be trans­ferred to the new com­pa­ny to be set up.

He said re­mov­ing the seabridge from the Board of the Port Au­thor­i­ty will al­low the Port to have the time which is re­quired to dis­cuss in­ter­na­tion­al port mat­ters and how to at­tract in­ter­na­tion­al lin­ers.

As the line Min­is­ter for the Port, Sinanan said his vi­sion for the in­ter-is­land trans­port sys­tem in­cludes an ef­fi­cient seabridge and wa­ter taxi ser­vice but he wants more.

“I am look­ing at whether it may not make more sense to have fer­ries around the is­land, a car­go fer­ry from La Brea to Port-of-Spain rather than hav­ing 1,000 trucks on the road, some­thing fea­si­ble. The pos­si­bil­i­ty of run­ning a fer­ry from San Fer­nan­do to Port-of-Spain to ease the traf­fic and pro­vide trans­porta­tion on in­ter-is­land trav­el us­ing the wa­ters around.”

All about union bust­ing —An­nisette

Pres­i­dent of the Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers Trade Union Michael An­nisette be­lieves there is an "agen­da" be­hind the Min­is­ter's push to pri­va­tise the seabridge, he is ac­cus­ing the Min­is­ter of “union bust­ing,” say­ing it’s a “case of Petrotrin all over again.”

An­nisette be­lieves that the un­der­ly­ing fac­tor be­hind Sinanan's de­ci­sion is to “break the Sea­men’s Union,” which he says rep­re­sents the more than 500 work­ers who work on the seabridge at the Port.

As far as An­nisette is con­cerned there is no log­i­cal ex­pla­na­tion for the de­ci­sion an­nounced by the Min­is­ter. He re­called that many years ago four com­pa­nies were set up at the Port, with the Trinidad and To­ba­go In­ter-Is­land Trans­port Com­pa­ny be­ing as­signed the role of man­ag­er of the seabridge.

He said the an­nounce­ment raised a num­ber of ques­tions: “If you are tak­ing away all the ves­sels and putting it in­to a new com­pa­ny what hap­pens to that Com­pa­ny? Will it fall by the way­side? What are you go­ing to do with the work­ers? Are you go­ing to trans­fer them? What hap­pens to the bar­gain­ing unit that the Sea­men’s Union rep­re­sents, isn’t it by ef­fect you de­stroy­ing the bar­gain­ing unit?” he asked.

Sinanan told the Par­lia­ment on Tues­day that he will be "push­ing firm­ly" for the re­moval of the seabridge from the Port Au­thor­i­ty and plac­ing it un­der a new com­pa­ny with a sep­a­rate board.

He blamed the cri­sis on the seabridge for his de­ci­sion say­ing when he as­sumed of­fice he faced a “loom­ing cri­sis about to ex­plode.” Sinanan said he did not want to get in­to who "was right or wrong" or whose fault it was but wants an "ef­fi­cient and re­li­able seabridge."

An­nisette said Sinanan need­ed to ac­cept "full re­spon­si­bil­i­ty" for the cri­sis which neg­a­tive­ly af­fect­ed the seabridge in the last two years and which caused busi­ness­es in To­ba­go to col­lapse.

He said it was the Min­is­ter who re­fused to sign the Char­ter Par­ty agree­ment for an ex­ten­sion of ser­vice of the Su­per­fast Gali­cia to Oc­to­ber last year and which led to the col­lapse of the seabridge.

Sinanan told Guardian Me­dia he did not in­tend to get in­to a pub­lic spat with An­nisette. “If he wants to de­bate me he could come to the Par­lia­ment as a UNC Sen­a­tor,” Sinanan said.