Seaport joins airport as COVID-19 logistics hub

The Bridgetown Port is now a logistics hub for the rest of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) during the COVID-19 pandemic.

And officials are touting the development as a major boost towards Barbados achieving its goal of becoming the main hub for the southern Caribbean.

The initiative was launched Wednesday by port officials, the Caribbean Disaster Emergency Management Agency (CDEMA), the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), and the government of Canada in what is being called an Integrated Regional Logistics Hub (IRLH) at the Bridgetown Port.

The logistics hub would act as a primary storage and transhipment point for COVID-19 relief supplies and aid the coordination of humanitarian logistics.

CDEMA’s Acting Executive Director Elizabeth Riley said the initiative was born because analysis of past significant hazards in member states showed a need for the strengthening of logistics and relief management within CARICOM’s Regional Response Mechanism.

The Port of Bridgetown now joins the Grantley Adams International Airport as two staging posts for logistical planning throughout all stages of the humanitarian supply chain, said Riley.

Personal protective equipment supplies was to be distributed to countries as needed to as far north as Jamaica and Haiti, she added.

The COVID-19 hub will also be available for the rest of the hurricane season “and possibly beyond as a legacy facility”.

The hub was born out of a national and regional programme over a year ago to enhance distribution, monitoring and tracking of relief supplies, but the COVID-19 pandemic had propelled those efforts, according to Riley.

Declaring that the region was now faced with multiple hazards, including  the pandemic, drought and a very active hurricane season, Riley said there was now a greater level of “complexity” that while not insurmountable had to be carefully planned for and addressed through regional solidarity.

Some of the $598,000 (CA$401,359) donated by Canada for the hub is to obtain personal protective equipment (PPE) and other medical supplies for frontline workers.

CDB President Dr Warren Smith revealed the bank had provided $6 million (US$3 million) to buy PPE for doctors and patients in 14 CARICOM countries.

He said the demand for PPE substantially outstrips supply globally, and this was compounded by price escalation and logistical challenges.

Smith said: “Given these challenges, CDB consulted with regional partners and agreed to purchase the PPE on a wholesale basis so that recipient countries could benefit from economies of scale and uniform product quality.

“Today, we are taking delivery of the equipment which includes over 250,000 protective gloves, 160,000 masks, 110,000 gowns, 66,000 goggles and 35,000 protective suits. We expect that most of the PPE will have been delivered to the beneficiary countries by the end of this month.”

Chairman of the Bridgetown Port Senator Lisa Cummins said the IRLH will help Barbados fulfil its dream of becoming the main southern Caribbean logistics hub.

Senator Cummins said: “When we talk about a logistics hub we are talking about becoming the southern most country in the region to be providing trans-shipment support to everywhere else in the southern region, coming from the African continent, the Eastern and Southern Caribbean and down to South America.

“So this initiative which the [Bridgetown Port] has piloted is one of the very first initiatives that allows us to help actualise that.” marlonmadden@barbadostoday.bb