Disclaimer: The views and opinions expressed by the author(s) do not represent the official position of Barbados TODAY.
By Alessandro Giustolisi
PART 2 – A comparative outlook
A few days after the article “Ferry business in the Caribbean should be preceded by free movement of goods” was published in the Barbados TODAY on May 24th, I was pleasantly surprised to be contacted by Mr. Tore Torsteinson, owner of Windward Ferries Limited and former captain of the “MV Windward”, until it stopped sailing at the end of the 1990’s. Today, we can confidently say that Windward Ferries limited, with its only ship “MV Windward”, was the pioneer of the Ferry initiative in the Caribbean and the only ever southern Caribbean non-subsidised ferry service.
Unfortunately, after the ship suffered mechanical issues, it was forced to stop sailing its route between the Caribbean islands and Venezuela. Despite its apparent benefits to the region, none of the islands – except St Vincent, where pilot fees had been waived and the ship was registered – gave the captain any concessions. Today Torsteinson, has a consulting maritime company in Trinidad and still is convinced that a ferry service is an essential means of transportation within the Caribbean region that could impact the region’s people positively.
I personally have had the experience of travelling on his ferry many times and the opportunity of sending freight out of Margarita or Guiria in Venezuela to Trinidad, St. Vincent, Barbados, St. Lucia and back. As I can recall, all my experiences were pleasant, and freighting was crucial when my business first started and I was doing distribution from my former base in Margarita Island to the other islands.
The only differences between my ferry concept and that of Mr. Torsteinson’s, is that his initial focus was on one ship while I want to start with three ships. His plan was about 20 years ago, but considering today’s market we have to adapt a more effective plan, because things have changed and there are a lot more variables to consider, in order to make this type of service more cost efficient, sustainable and profitable.
I have launched some ideas about a possible ferry plan as I have mentioned in my previous article, and as I have stated, it is possible to do a project like this, but it would require true interest from the Caribbean Governments, especially in creating the legal basis of free movement of goods and people, plus some financing. Without these two essential key factors, it will never work out the way it’s supposed to and all that the governments would have attributed would have been political propaganda as usual.
MV Windward
The CARICOM governments are also quick to mention or state that they are waiting for “somebody or a third party” to get a plan, but when someone like Mr. Torsteinson appears, who already had a ferry and was the only one who had one, why was no one looking for him? I find it very unfortunate and ironic that most of the time the Caribbean Governments find the funds to pay overseas consultants to research issues that, in my opinion, are less important than the ferry and/or air connection initiatives.
But what about extending an invitation for regional proposals from local companies like Mr. Torsteinson’s, mine or even the Azalea Ferry Project and others, who use their own private money, along with their passion and their generosity towards public interest and a better future.
A project as large as a ferry or air connection project cannot be funded by just a single, small company. To be more attractive to investors, it would need governmental backing and less political red tape. We could even create a mixed team, but mostly locals, with people who understand our region, its sea and air transportation issues and limitations. In the initial stages, the mixed team would have onboard a leading CARICOM Government, Barbados preferably, along with the backing of other CARICOM Governments and extend the team to encompass governments, like Brazil, France representing French Guyana, Guadeloupe, Martinique, St. Martin and Venezuela because a lot of cargo could move out of Brazil, Venezuela and lot of passengers from the French territories. Having all these components some foreign investor company could adopt our plan and make it a financial reality.
This lack of interest from governments and financial institutions is all too familiar in the black chapter of our transportation history. For example, the REDjet project, which ended in killing the first ever initiative in creating a private medium haul airline to compete with LIAT, which at that time was just reduced to a network between Puerto Rico and Guyana. This airline based in Barbados, thanks to the courageous initiative of our eminent businessman Ralph Bizzy Williams with his counterpart Irish partner Rob and Ian Burns, could be today the base of our aviation industry perhaps with some medium and long-haul routes. But thanks to the non action of Caribbean governments the airline collapsed and no government saw the importance in helping it. REDjet could have been the alternative not only for LIAT, but to move people and tourists in the medium and long- haul routes, opening our region to more countries than the usual UK, US and Canada, the only market we have been religiously faithful to for the past 60 years.
I hope going forward, that all Caribbean and regional Governments and financial institutions finally decide to change their attitudes and look at all opportunities they receive in proposals for sea and air transportation, starting from regional local companies like the Windward Ferries Ltd and Antillean Atlantic, because good projects and ideas can come from people with no money or without a renowned name. Sound knowledge and creative ideas are not related to money or the importance of the name, they’re related to a feasible and good plan. A good plan would attract strong investors, which in turn would bring revenue to the public and private sector. There are many examples of wrong decisions made by important prominent people or large economic groups. Today it looks like no one with money or with an important name has any plans for sea and air transportation, but it looks like someone without money and an important name has some projects, so they should be welcomed as well.
I would like to bring to light another important issue. We are still in the habit today, in our Caribbean region, even after many official statements especially from the Prime Minister of Barbados to avoid the middleman and the north, of relying on consulting companies in the UK, US and Canada. Perfect example of this would be our BTMI, which still relies on UK/Canadian consulting firms, and I find this ridiculous. We talk about Africa and opening the middle Atlantic corridor, but not one “northern” institution would help us in doing it, so let’s start to rely first on our local forces and others out of the usual northern group.
We in the Caribbean are at one about an hour flight to Venezuela, between one and a half to two hours to Brazil, Colombia, Dominican Republic, three hours to Cuba, Central America, Ecuador, Mexico depending where we fly and we never develop strong links with those countries during the years for many reasons. I am certain one of the relevant factors is the pressure we get from the “northern” countries, which has been going on for over 50 years for sure. Our local institutions should be guided by our people, even foreign ones too if we do need them, but primarily by those who know our region and our issues well and not by those who don’t know much about our region and culture and who give us nothing and waste our public funds.
Alessandro Giustolisi is a former travel industry executive and the owner and operator of Antillean Atlantic.
