Opposition Leader says it is “a terrible thing” that a cruise ship arrived in St. Vincent and the Grenadines on Sunday and left without docking because the Kingstown Cruise Terminal (KCT|) was occupied by a vehicle carrier that was damaged while docking there.
He noted that the cruise ship — Aurora, which can carry 2,258 passengers — was scheduled to make a single call to the destination this season, which runs through April 2025.
“It is a terrible thing to happen where you have a cruise ship, one single call to St. Vincent and the Grenadines this year, shows up, and then they say, ‘Well, we are close to business because somebody else is using the berth that you’re supposed to be at’,” the opposition leader said on Monday on his weekly radio show.
“What are we running here? A mauby shop?” said Friday, who is also opposition spokesperson on tourism.
“Just think of the impression that makes. You go give all kinds of excuses and explanations, but the people would be pissed because they made this a call. They have organised their schedule, there’re costs to all of these things, the expectation of their guests, and so forth.
“And then you show up, you come into Port Kingstown, and you can’t dock because you have somebody else using the berth that was built as a cruise ship berth. Don’t give excuses. Get solutions to these problems.”
The vehicle carrier, Splendid Ace, left Kingstown at noon on Tuesday after undergoing repairs.
Friday noted that SVG relies on tourism, especially at this time of the year.
“We have to maximise our benefit from it. And every cruise ship that you lose is money that the country is losing,” he said.
The opposition leader said he could not think of any rational explanation as to why the vehicle carrier had to be at the berth.
“Why is the cruise ship terminal, if you use it when the cruise ship season is done as they were doing earlier, because they say, alright, you need to do this, and it’s more convenient, but the cruise ship season started.
“So why are you having the car boat, as they call it, the roll on, roll off boat still docking at that facility when it’s supposed to be available for the cruise ships. That’s inexcusable.”
In a statement on Sunday, the Port Authority said that use of KCT to berth cargo ships became necessary because of serious damage to the main Kingstown cargo pier caused by Hurricane Beryl.
The cyclone impacted SVG on July 1 as a category 4 hurricane that smashed several records, including the speed at which it developed.
A new cargo port that is being built in the city is slated to be completed by the middle of 2025.
The Port Authority said that shifting cargo operations to KCT as a temporary substitute was done to ensure continuation of some aspects of maritime trade, taking into account certain functional conditions.
Friday said:
“The cruise ship is what brings the money in at this time of year. I know that the car boat, it comes, it does its business.”
He, however, noted that people want to get their vehicles, adding that this is fine.
“We understand that. But if you can’t have it where you’re actually losing business on the other hand simply because the authorities had not planned properly for something as simple as that.
“That don’t take no rocket science to execute that. You have two boats coming here, and they can do their work, and we benefit from both.
“That picture, that photograph of that cruise ship, the Aurora, leaving Kingstown and heading off somewhere else, that is such a terrible image to be sending to the rest of the industry and to the world to say, ‘Well, look, St. Vincent and the Grenadines we ain’t ready yet.’
“Everybody trying to get business, but we are saying, ‘Don’t come. Or we can tell you when to come because we’re kind of busy.”
The opposition leader said this is not the message that SVG should be sending.
“And the Minister of Tourism, the people at the port, all of them, need to be held accountable. And they should be held accountable for this. And it’s not acceptable that we have this situation.
“It just makes us look so disorganised and so unready and so backward, quite frankly, in St. Vincent, and the Grenadines.”
Friday said the cruise ship cancelled its call to Kingstown even as other countries like St. Kitts are having three and four cruise ships at the time at their ports.
“And here in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, they never take any effort to try and expand or do anything with the cruise ship berth.”
I don’t know how you are going to fix these disparities. It seems you only talk then we don’t hear nothing else. It is getting tiresome.
The issue that has not been publicly addressed is were the affected tour operators, taxis etc compensated for their loss of expected earnings. Accidents are simply that and this entire episode is so unfortunate.