Gail Alexan­der

Se­nior Po­lit­i­cal Re­porter

The Works Min­istry’s Mar­itime Di­vi­sion is warn­ing peo­ple on the To­co side not to use in­for­mal trans­porta­tion to get to this week­end’s To­ba­go Car­ni­val. Par­ty boats are al­so a grave con­cern, Works Min­is­ter Jear­lean John said.

John al­so said she was com­fort­able with the re­duced fund­ing al­lo­cat­ed by the Fi­nance Min­istry for pot­holes, paving, land­slips and sim­i­lar work in 2027.

She made the com­ments yes­ter­day at Par­lia­ment’s Stand­ing Fi­nance Com­mit­tee, re­spond­ing to ques­tions from Op­po­si­tion MPs Chris­t­ian Birch­wood, Stu­art Young (SC), Colm Im­bert and Mar­vin Gon­za­les. The ques­tions con­cerned the Works Min­istry’s $2.454 bil­lion al­lo­ca­tion in the 2027 Bud­get.

Young asked about Mar­itime Ser­vices per­son­nel re­spon­si­ble for en­sur­ing that ves­sels com­ply with the law, say­ing the area was be­com­ing in­creas­ing­ly im­por­tant.

“You’re very right,” John said. “At the Mon­day morn­ing meet­ings with de­part­ment heads, the di­rec­tor of Mar­itime Ser­vices is al­ways hap­py to re­port the num­ber of let­ters he is­sues over the pre­ced­ing week­end” con­cern­ing par­ty boats.

“That’s a mat­ter of grave con­cern. We’re do­ing a 100 per cent in­spec­tion. It’s not easy, but we try our best be­cause we know peo­ple will try to go against the law.”

Young said he ex­pect­ed John to have re­ceived a pro­posed pol­i­cy for new leg­is­la­tion to ad­dress the reg­u­lar­i­sa­tion of par­ty boats, not just their in­spec­tion. He asked whether the Mar­itime Ser­vices Di­vi­sion was work­ing on it.

“That is part of it, yes. They’re look­ing at that,” John said.

“We’re al­so look­ing at the Pi­lotage Au­thor­i­ty be­cause they are re­al­ly very in­volved. But it’s even more than the leg­is­la­tion. It’s the en­force­ment, so even with what we have, it’s rarely treat­ed with that en­force­ment. This is a very, very trou­bling set of ac­tiv­i­ties, quite frankly.”

Young agreed and sug­gest­ed re­cruit­ing con­tract­ed per­son­nel to help.

Thank­ing Young, John said the di­rec­tor had re­port­ed “more or less 100 per cent cov­er­age every sin­gle week.” She said the min­istry had en­cour­aged him to dis­trib­ute fly­ers and use so­cial me­dia to warn peo­ple on the To­co side against us­ing in­for­mal trans­porta­tion to trav­el to To­ba­go for Car­ni­val.

Im­bert asked whether the al­lo­ca­tion for Mar­itime of­fi­cers’ salaries, cost of liv­ing ad­just­ments and va­cant posts was suf­fi­cient to ad­dress haz­ards the di­vi­sion deals with, in­clud­ing un­reg­u­lat­ed an­chor­ing in the Ch­aguara­mas area, ves­sels with­out nav­i­ga­tion lights and small ves­sels an­chored il­le­gal­ly.

John said the per­son in charge had not re­port­ed be­ing un­der pres­sure. The min­istry was al­so re­ceiv­ing sup­port from the Pi­lotage Au­thor­i­ty on un­reg­u­lat­ed off­shore an­chor­ing.

“I think we have a vote to go be­fore Cab­i­net with re­spect to that, be­cause all of that comes in­to our Blue Econ­o­my plan,” she said.

“The un­reg­u­lat­ed boats an­chor­ing off­shore are an­chor­ing with­out prop­er in­spec­tion or au­thor­i­ty, and there are ex­pen­sive pipelines be­neath the ocean sur­face.”