Port congestion angers customers
THEIR FURROWED brows and frowning faces told it all. One hour. Two. Three. And even more.
The weight of delay took a toll on customs brokers, deliverymen and other customers as they endured the gruelling wait to collect goods at the Port of Kingston last Wednesday.
“A man will spend up to four hours or more just to collect one barrel. It can’t work, and a one place him deh. The broker deh same place, to mek it worse. Four hours or all half a day to collect one barrel. How productive is that, all when you build expanded warehouse?” a member of the Custom Brokers and Freight Forwarders Association of Jamaica (CBFFAJ) asked The Gleaner.
Those grievances echo the concerns of Richard Pandohie and other stakeholders about inefficiencies that dog the shipping industry, particularly at the Port of Kingston.
The port is divided into two terminals, operated by Kingston Wharves Limited (KWL), which mainly trades in barrels, and the Kingston Freeport Terminal Limited (KFTL), which primarily moves containers.
PROCESSING TIMES
When our news team visited KWL, customers there lamented the long wait for the processing of cargo, compounded by fears that the delays may worsen with increased traffic because of heightened commerce as Christmas draws closer.
“Dem send mi go deh so, dem send me go up deh so. When mi come here, it empty, and mi jus a get through,” an elderly woman, who declined to have her name published, told The Gleaner. “I don’t want nobody send me anything else ‘cause I cannot manage this, and it’s not even Christmas season.”
“When I see dem mek this facility, I think say people a go come in and get through. It is better, you know, in terms of space, but building this place fi people tek four hours fi get through, that nuh mek things better,” another waiting customer chimed in.
“The facility, overall, is good in terms of accommodation and so forth. I think the main problem customers have is the picking-up point. The delivery area, sometimes the vehicle dem back up all fi all hours, and that a next time to get through.”
However, KWL sought to defuse the simmering frustration, saying it continued to implement measures that were responsive to the needs of manufacturers and other owners of cargo, including those in the domestic sector, committing to speeding up the movement of goods along the supply chain.
KWL has expanded its yard capacity, relocating on-dock warehouses and establishing an 18-acre Global Auto Logistics Facility at Tinson Pen, the company’s CEO, Grantley Stephenson, said last week, crediting the works for improving “receival, delivery and storage of various cargo types in keeping with the multipurpose nature of the terminal”.
But delivery crews are not sold on the talk of improved movement of cargo, explaining that snarls and bureaucracy at the port were costing them time and money, reducing the number of trips they can execute daily.
“We nuh worried bout the flow of how things a come in, we worried about the flow of how things a trickle down inna our pockets. When the delivery time slow, we can only do one work for the day, and that mash we up, and dem nuh give we no preferential treatment,” a driver who withheld his name told the news team.
“We haffi join the same line … . As far as I am concerned, ... the crowd will deh ya and it nah move ‘cause dem slow over the Kingston Wharf,” he said, bemoaning the pace of outward cargo delivery and its impact on his business.
Meanwhile, customs brokers have backed up claims made last week by Pandohie about a looming hike in fees at KFTL and worsening delays in the throughput of cargo.
According to Mitsy Gordon Burke-Green, president of the CBFFAJ, members had been informed of a 33 per cent jump in handling fees at the terminal.
Burke-Green told The Gleaner that as at November 1, KFTL will charge US$25 more to retrieve containers and load them on to trucks. Our news team understands that the current charge is US$75.
Speaking with this newspaper last week, Pandohie cast the local trans-shipment problems at the port as symptomatic of systemic disintegration and disorder, factors that have hobbled the movement of cargo over the last four to six weeks.
When contacted, Trevesa DaSilva, of KFTL’s Communications Unit, said she was not at liberty to confirm the increase in fees at the terminal or speak on the matter.