Port resumes normal cargo operations after delays

Cargo operations at the Bridgetown Port appear to be back on track, following acute delivery delays on Tuesday that enraged private truckers and business owners.

Unlike on Tuesday when container trucks were backed up outside the main gates waiting for as long as seven hours to access containers for delivery, not a single vehicle was in sight today when a Barbados TODAY team visited the scene.

Port officials reported the situation was back to normal. But one of the island’s leading trucking and lifting companies wasn’t convinced.

“Cargo operations at the Port of Bridgetown have normalised with a steady flow of trucks in and out the gates. As at 4.30 p.m., today February 5, 2025, Barbados Port Inc. recorded 136 truck visits into the port. Already 123 trucks had departed the port with containerised cargo,” management officials said in a statement prepared for Barbados TODAY on Wednesday.

The officials also gave an assurance that container deliveries will continue through to 11 o’clock on Wednesday night.

“The Port of Bridgetown,” they disclosed, “discharged 1 240 twenty-foot equivalent units (TEUs) from vessels between Sunday and today.”

Stating that two freighters are currently in port, management rejected claims by some frustrated truck drivers on Tuesday of a shortage of equipment and labour.

But Hinds Transport Services Limited – one of the trucking and lifting companies hardest hit by the delay – is not buying the port authorities’ statement that things are back to normal.

“Well, they haven’t gone back to normal,” managing director Dave Hinds told Barbados TODAY. “Things have improved. We got good service today, but today is not normal; what happened today is not normal. What happened today is definitely not normal, but we got good service today, we got very good service today.

Hinds said he was waiting to see what happens on Thursday, pointing out that while there was good service in the morning, things slowed during the afternoon.

The port announced in a statement on Tuesday that its prioritisation of cruise ships had led to the cargo delivery delays, a situation which private truckers and business owners complained was causing them to face mounting financial losses.

The issue had also prompted calls for urgent government intervention, as distraught drivers reported waiting up to seven hours for a single container.

While acknowledging that cargo delivery would be delayed on Tuesday, port managers explained that their efforts have had to be focused on handling the influx of cruise ships docking at the harbour.

But the truck drivers contended that the issue has been ongoing for some time now, and called on either Prime Minister Mia Mottley or Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Transport and Works Santia Bradshaw to step in and help resolve an issue that is costing their businesses dearly in extra charges.

“It’s ridiculous,” declared a trucker parked outside the port on Tuesday. “This is something that has been going on since last year, since tourist season started. It is ridiculous. You have all this equipment, and you telling you short of drivers. It is not good enough. You supplying the tourist ships with containers; but when it comes to the outside truckers to deliver their goods to the customers, we can’t get containers.”

“Sometimes,” another driver claimed, “you got a lot of machines in there, sometimes you don’t have any labour…sometimes you don’t have any men to work them…this is unacceptable.”

The Barbados Workers’ Union (BWU), the bargaining agent for port employees, said the situation is not an industrial relations issue.

“Since this matter falls within their [port] operational remit, we will allow the port to address it accordingly,” BWU Communications and Information Manager Cheyne Jones told Barbados TODAY on Tuesday.