Hearts broken a day before Valentine's day in Tobago as a number of business persons claim a situation involving Customs, Swissport and Caribbean Airlines has resulted in their Valentine's day goods being stuck in Trinidad since arrival on January 29th. Elizabeth Williams has been following the story and she has more in this report.
00:05when cargo arrives in Port of Spain to be forwarded to Tobago, there's a document called a PTR form that needs to accompany the cargo.
00:13This gives Swissport authority to move goods from the Caribbean Airlines bond in Piaco to the Caribbean Airlines bond at Crumpoint in Tobago.
00:24The forwarding of the cargo would most times be done the next day or at least on the next available flight to Tobago.
00:33However, since a new system was instituted, the procedure has been altered.
00:38Now the PTR form needs to be sent to the customs officers in Tobago to be stamped and signed without the cargo, then returned to Trinidad via jetpack.
00:49Only when the form is received back in Trinidad would the cargo be released from the bond to be booked on a flight to Tobago.
00:57The issue with this is there is no set timeline for the process and it can take weeks based on how fast the officers work on it.
01:08In addition, Tobago business owners can only clear goods on two days in Tobago for two hours, Tuesday and Friday 8am to 10am by Caribbean Airlines cargo
01:20because those are the only days the customs officers are scheduled to deal with those matters.
01:26This was confirmed by customs in Trinidad.
01:29One business owner told the TV6 News quote cargo arrived for my store on January 30th in Port of Spain.
01:36On February 3rd, I was told the PTR form was in Tobago to be stamped and signed.
01:42Still, only after a million calls between last Saturday and this week was the form sent back to Trinidad for the goods to be released from the bond.
01:53I have thousands of dollars worth of goods I purchased for Valentine's Day, which is on Friday, and I'm not able to get my goods before time, end quote.
02:03The businessman claimed he contacted a customs officer who said they would try to request an extra shift to get the goods to Tobago.
02:12However, that request was denied.
02:15Some business owners are now contemplating closing up shop as the situation is a constant battle to have goods shipped to Tobago in a timely manner.
02:25While in Trinidad, businesses are facilitated with almost a daily clearing of goods.
02:31TV6 contacted the Minister of Finance, Col. Imbert, via text on the matter.
02:36We also contacted Head of Corporate Communications of Caribbean Airlines, Dion Legault, via phone, text and email for a comment on the matter and are awaiting responses.
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