ELIZ­A­BETH GON­ZA­LES

GML Cor­re­spon­dent

The chair­man of the To­ba­go di­vi­sion of the T&T Cham­ber of In­dus­try and Com­merce (TTCIC), Cur­tis Williams, says the Cham­ber will en­sure that the promise of a new car­go ves­sel for the is­land is not over­shad­owed by elec­tion-year dis­trac­tions.

Williams told Guardian Me­dia that the new ves­sel is cru­cial for To­ba­go’s com­merce in this time, and he is de­ter­mined to hold au­thor­i­ties ac­count­able for de­liv­er­ing on their com­mit­ments.

The promise of a new car­go ves­sel resur­faced in 2023 af­ter a fire on board the Cabo Star car­go ves­sel.

The ves­sel was pulled from the sea bridge for emer­gency re­pairs, which took three weeks. This led to a short­age of food and build­ing ma­te­ri­als on the is­land. Ware­hous­es re­port­ed­ly ran out of beer, toi­let pa­per and wa­ter, while hard­ware stores were out of ce­ment, lum­ber and sand.

Ac­cord­ing to the Cham­ber, it is es­ti­mat­ed that the is­land’s busi­ness com­mu­ni­ty suf­fered some $5 mil­lion in loss­es.

On the re­turn of the ves­sel to the sea bridge, Min­is­ter of Works and Trans­port Ro­han Sinanan promised that the is­land should have a new ves­sel 16 months af­ter the ten­der­ing process.

The RFP for this new car­go ves­sel was ini­tial­ly set for re­lease in Oc­to­ber 2023 but was de­layed un­til March 2024.

Ac­cord­ing to the RFP, the ves­sel is ex­pect­ed to take 14 to 16 months to build, tar­get­ing a de­liv­ery date of June 2026.

The new ves­sel will fea­ture a speed of 20 knots, ac­com­mo­date 240 truck­ers and have 40 en-suite pas­sen­ger cab­ins, along with lounges for 200 peo­ple.

It will trans­port a min­i­mum of 130 trucks and in­clude spe­cial stor­age for LPG tanks and dan­ger­ous car­go.

In 2024, the chair­man of the Na­tion­al De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Ltd (NID­CO), Her­bert George, said the com­pa­ny had re­ceived three bids for the new car­go ves­sel’s pro­cure­ment. Since then, there has not been any word on the pro­cure­ment process.

This has left Williams wor­ried.

“No, we’re not go­ing to let it get lost at all,” he said. “This is To­ba­go, and it ben­e­fits Trinidad and To­ba­go. We are not go­ing to give up on that. Elec­tion year, yes, we know there will be fan­cy promis­es, but if there’s no de­liv­ery, we know what to do when the time comes. I’m plead­ing with the au­thor­i­ties that you de­liv­er on your promis­es. Don’t give us dreams like we liv­ing in a dream world.”

Williams ex­plained that the Cham­ber is set to meet with the Port Au­thor­i­ty be­fore the end of the month, at which time he hopes to get up­dates on the new ves­sel.

NID­CO chair­man Her­bert George could not be reached for com­ment.