As part of Port Day 2016, several display booths were set up for members of the public to learn more about the facility. Pictured here, AB Shane Coulthrust showing six-year-old Jayden Jemmott how this piece of diving equipment works.
Full steam ahead for Port’s Master Plan
Sun, 11/13/2016 - 12:26am
Expansion, human resource strengthening part programme
By:
Marsha Gittens
Government is in the middle of executing a Master Plan at the Bridgetown Port.
Minister of Tourism Richard Sealy disclosed, adding that government is committed to strengthening this facility. He was at the time delivering the feature address at yesterday’s Port Day 2016 event.
Sharing aspects of the plan, the Tourism Minister said “at the human resource level, we have been looking at strengthening that capacity. We have been training people in the marine division. In the administration division, we have been doing a lot of work in that regards modernising the skill set that is available for Port activity but also the facility [and] the infrastructure”.
He also stated that the berthing available for home porting activities has been expanded and they are in the process of further expanding it. Sealy additionally shared that at the Port an additional Gantry crane has been added to the fleet and the number of straddle carriers, which are used to transport containers, have been increased from eight to 13 this year.
Focusing on the location where the 25 stalls were situated for Saturday’s Port Day activities, the Tourism Minister said this area too will be improved.
He stated that the Port’s overall improvements will allow “more capacity not only for the imports Barbados needs but in order to tranship to the rest of the Caribbean… [Also,] the capacity will be increased that we can have more containers, that we can have more facility to process these containers whether we are going to be breaking them out [and] distributing the cargo or whether it will be transhipped to go elsewhere.”
He additionally indicated that the steps taken are part of the vision for the Bridgetown facility.
“In our 50th year of nationhood, it is good to see that we are already thinking about the next 50 years because marine transportation is going to be very busy in this region. There is the expansion of the Panama Canal and there is talk about potentially another canal in Nicaragua just north of where the Panama Canal is, and we have to make sure we get some of this marine business and that is why we have to expand the berthing and that is why our capacity to process cargo has to be increased and at the same time modernise.”(MG)