The Bridgetown Port’s prioritisation of cruise ships has led to severe cargo delivery delays, sparking outrage among private truckers and business owners who are facing mounting financial losses, Barbados TODAY can reveal.
The situation has prompted calls for urgent government intervention, as frustrated drivers report waiting up to seven hours for a single container.
While admitting that cargo delivery would be delayed on Tuesday, port management officials explained that their efforts have had to be focused on handling the influx of cruise ships docking at the Deep Water Harbour.
But the frustrated truck drivers contend that the issue has been ongoing for some time now, and called on either Prime Minister Mia Mottley or Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport and Works Santia Bradshaw to step in and help resolve an issue that is costing their businesses dearly in extra charges.
“It’s ridiculous,” declared a trucker parked outside the port on Tuesday. “This is something that has been going on since last year, since tourist season started. It is ridiculous. You have all this equipment, and you telling you short of drivers. It is not good enough. You supplying the tourist ships with containers; but when it comes to the outside truckers to deliver their goods to the customers, we can’t get containers.”
“You getting one in a day. Sometimes you don’t get any at all. Something needs to be done. You have to pay for a truck every month. Every truck has to be paid for every month, or it cannot work in the Bridgetown Port…and this service is ridiculous,” argued the trucker, who preferred to remain anonymous.
The man, who has been in the trucking business for 40 years, complained that when the owners call the port to be updated on the cargo delays, they are told “the port is working. We are doing deliveries.”
He added: “That is why the business owners have to come to the Bridgetown Port and stand up and see the situation that is going down here. So, when we tell you, yes, we are trying to get your container from since 7 o’clock this morning and you leave at 3:30 with the first container, whose fault that is?”
The trucker said owners will feel this in their pockets because drivers have to be paid daily and if the port decides to work late, the driver must be paid overtime. “So, eventually you [business owners] are going to feel it. Then you can’t say, ‘I am going to push this on to the consumer,’ because you can’t push it there. So, the loss is at you,” the driver suggested.
He claimed that since the port was upgraded and computerised with modern equipment, instead of it going forward, it is regressing.
Port officials say business hours will be extended to 11 p.m. on Wednesday to ease the delays. (HG)
The veteran trucker recalled that “back in the day”, upwards of eight cargo containers could be delivered in a day by one driver alone, but now, he may only get two.
Another trucker said he and several other of his colleagues were waiting outside the port for more than seven hours on Tuesday to access containers for delivery. “I would like Auntie Mia to come down and see what is going on down here,” he declared, as a second trucker chimed in: “And Santia could come too.”
“Sometimes,” the driver claimed, “you got a lot of machines in there, sometimes you don’t have any labour…sometimes you don’t have any men to work them…this is unacceptable.
The head of one of the country’s leading trucking and lifting companies, whose business was adversely impacted by the cargo delivery delay, said this has been happening for weeks now.
Managing Director of Hinds Transport Services Limited Dave Hinds recalled that about a year ago, the port blamed a lack of equipment for the cargo delays, but he contended that even with new equipment, the problem still remains.
Hinds told Barbados TODAY that of his 12 trucks which are licensed to bring containers out of the port every day, only about half found work on Tuesday.
“We have 12 trucks, we have to pay a monthly fee to take trucks into the port to bring out containers. We have 12 trucks licensed and registered to go into the port on a daily basis. We have had to send people on holiday because work is so slow,” the managing director of the 68-year-old company disclosed.
He added: “Our guys got one container per truck today, and of the 12 trucks there were only about five or six trucks in there today. One container per truck. Guys were there from 7 o’clock this morning, and got out after 2 o’clock with a single container; and then they expect people to work overtime. People aren’t motivated to work overtime. They are tired, they are sitting down in the sun for a whole day.”
Asked if he expected the situation at the port to improve on Wednesday, he said he didn’t think so.
Hinds described the service at the port as totally unsatisfactory.
In a statement, the port explained that “while resources are concentrated on vessel discharge operations, container deliveries will be slow. Truck wait times,” it said, “may therefore be extended.”
While apologising for the inconvenience, officials assured that opening hours would be extended to 11 p.m., on Tuesday, to accommodate for the shortfall.
The Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU), the bargaining agent for port employees, said the situation is not an industrial relations issue.
“Since this matter falls within their [port] operational remit, we will allow the port to address it accordingly,” BWU Communications and Information Manager Cheyne Jones told Barbados TODAY.
emmanueljoseph@barbadostoday.bb
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