–CARICOM Chair
The high cost of a suitable vessel has set back plans for a regional ferry service despite initial optimism that Trinidad’s Galleons Passage would have enabled a quick start-up.
Chairman of CARICOM and Prime Minister of Grenada, Dickon Mitchell provided an update to the Sunday Stabroek.
“The challenge, obviously, is getting the right vessel, because we want a vessel that can do two things – carry cargo and at the same time carry passengers. We need a roll on/roll off vessel and getting the right vessel and getting the right price, particularly one that is fuel efficient is a challenge. It is really difficult to get the right vessel,” Mitchell said on Friday, on the sidelines of the CARICOM security meeting held in Guyana at the Arthur Chung Conference Centre in Liliendaal.
“In fact, we were just saying… Prime Minister [Barbados PM Mia Mottley] was just giving us an example of boats in Europe for consideration, but it is the price tag. That is always the challenge. So the price tag is the challenge, obviously, that we have. We are satisfied that this is an essential part of the infrastructure that we have to get going in the region, but it is still finding the right solution, finding the right vessel at the right price,” he iterated.
Addressing the opening ceremony of the 12th annual Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) consultation with Caribbean Governors, in February of this year here, President Irfaan Ali who was then Caricom Chairperson, had said that he hoped the service would begin in about three months.
A high-level meeting was held in Trinidad two weeks prior, and all sides had been given two months for the completion of pre-clearance procedures for immigration, customs, and plant quarantine, and to make the ferry service a reality as soon as possible. That plan has gone nowhere.
Ali had stated that the aim was also to bring on board the regional private sector to implement similar initiatives to enhance areas of supply chain and logistics. “We have launched the first phase of this. In another two, or three months, that ferry will begin operations, and we are hoping that this will instil confidence in the private sector, and for the IDB investors, this is an excellent opportunity to bring a regional consortium together.”
He had told the IDB gathering that this venture signals the readiness of the three countries to take action to solve shared challenges in the Caribbean region.
According to the head of state, this initiative falls under a joint slogan, which was dubbed “The coalition of the willing.”
“We are not waiting on everyone. Those who are willing to start an innovative project will go ahead, and the others will join when they are ready,” he stated. When asked for an update in early May of this year, Ali had said that technical assessments for the ferry service would have been completed by the end of that month.
He had also informed that the Guyana, Barbados, and Trinidad and Tobago initiative saw the setting up of a “working group with ministers and the technical people.”
Together, they “have completed and are going through all the phytosanitary requirement items that we can start with.
They’re examining the Guyana/Suriname model, in terms of the movement of vehicles, the insurance use, quarantine issues, and all of these things, and a technical team will conclude an analysis as to the port facilities; what will be required to adjust the port facilities for the vessel to land,” the President had explained.
“We have to see what reconfiguration is needed. I don’t want to pre-empt. Whatever vessel is used, has to be also in Barbados, Trinidad and Guyana,” he highlighted.
Ali would later in May also announce that the Parika Stelling will be upgraded by government to accommodate the necessary changes needed for the docking of the regional ferry and to enable it to be a transportation and logistical hub in the future.
“With the type of development in Essequibo, it becomes a very important major transport and logistics hub.
I think the time has come for us to have a more holistic planning of Parika and what the stelling and that whole waterfront would entail, especially when you are talking about agro-processing, cold storage, farmers market, wholesale market… and the opening up to the islands [for tourism],” he said.
He had said that government will await the findings of the gap analysis to complete it, but is fully committed to not only the regional ferry project, but ensuring local farmers have a proper area to export their produce.
“We are fully committed to this project. Guyana is fully committed to the regional ferry, we are fully committed to the expansion of markets in the region, fully committed to value-added processing, cold storage, and the whole value chain when it comes to agriculture. This is going to be a sustainable national development a hundred years from now,” he said.
When discussions on the ferry were held in Trinidad in February of this year, Guyana’s team included Public Works Minister, Deodat Indar; Chief Plant Protection Officer, Ministry of Agriculture, Brian Sears; Head of Immigration, Stephen Telford; and Comptroller Customs Excise and Trade, Guyana Revenue Authority, Rohan Beekhoo.
The meeting which was chaired by Indar included an inspection of the Galleons Passage in Port of Spain, Trinidad. This was conducted by ministers and technical officials, followed by discussions also centred on the other areas of importance to the proposal for the common transportation system, such as plant quarantine, including sanitary and phytosanitary (SPS) matters, and immigration and customs for the movement of people and goods for trade. A system for pre-clearance was also proposed for implementation.
The Heads of Customs, Immigration, and Plant Quarantine from Guyana, Barbados, and Trinidad & Tobago, agreed that most systems were already in place, and could therefore be adjusted to accommodate the venture, especially considering the existing Guyana/Suriname ferry service arrangement to facilitate this commitment by the President of Guyana and the Prime Ministers of Barbados, and Trinidad & Tobago.
It was agreed that a team of technical officials from Trinidad & Tobago would visit Guyana and Barbados to inspect port infrastructure to accommodate the proposed ferry service within two weeks after the meeting.
A target date not exceeding two months was agreed upon by all participants to complete the work of pre-clearance procedures for immigration, customs, and plant quarantine. The team agreed to work constantly to make the ferry service a reality as soon as possible. It now appears that the Galleons Passage is not suitable for the task.
When the new CARICOM Chair, Prime Minister Mitchell, was asked about a new set time frame for implementation or decision on purchase of the vessel, he responded, “No time frame because to a large extent a lot of it really depends on getting a supplier who is prepared work with us,” while citing costs as a major hurdle.
