Port prepared

Chief Executive Officer of the Barbados Port Inc., David Jean-Marie, is giving the assurance that the Bridgetown Port has contingency plans in place to deal with industrial action.

He made the comments while responding to a question from the media regarding last week’s go-slow at the Port, as part of stepped up action by the Unions protesting an increase in the National Social Responsibility Levy. His comments came as he spoke at a press conference yesterday morning at the Port’s office to announce plans for the 47th Annual General Meeting of the Caribbean Shipping Association (CSA) to be held here from October 9-11.

“We only have one Port in Barbados and it is heavily unionised, so if there is industrial action it would impact heavily on our operations here; that is a fact. We do have our contingency plans in place, to deal with extreme circumstances because we don’t want any industrial action or any withdrawal of labour to be prolonged,” he said.

Jean-Marie noted that last week’s action obviously had an impact on their customers, as 90 per cent of goods coming into Barbados comes through that port of entry. As such, he said there were delays and “a bit of congestion” at the facility, but he said there were not similar problems yesterday when the unions and the private sector staged a protest march through the streets of Bridgetown.

Questioned then about the financial impact the recent go-slow had on the facility, the Chief Executive Officer did not go into detail, contending that their main concern was not necessarily the financial impact on the Port, but on getting the goods which were imported, processed, and out to the respective entities.

“We are not overly concerned about the impact on the Port per se, we are more concerned about the Port functioning efficiently for the benefit of all of our customers,” he insisted.

Meanwhile, he dismissed rumours that cruise passengers were being charged a shuttle fee to get out of the Port, since the recent demolition of the Bridgetown Port’s Main Gate, which has seen that access point to the facility closed. He made it clear that no such fee is being charged for the service they have been providing to passengers who are now utilising the Cargo Gate. But, Jean-Marie explained that even though the service is in place, the passengers have shown a preference towards walking. (JRT)