Da­reece Po­lo

The own­er of Trin­ba­go Ship­ping Ex­press, Pamela Lind­say, says out­stand­ing de­mur­rage fees and un­re­solved cus­tomer pay­ments are be­hind the pro­longed de­lays in ship­ments to Trinidad. Speak­ing with Guardian Me­dia on Mon­day, Lind­say said she owed more than US$200,000 to a steamship line af­ter con­tain­ers re­mained at the Port of Port-of-Spain be­yond the free stor­age pe­ri­od.

Lind­say ex­plained that her com­pa­ny ini­tial­ly al­lowed cus­tomers in the Unit­ed States to pay for ship­ments in T&T dol­lars, but the arrange­ment ran in­to dif­fi­cul­ties due to a short­age in the US. “We start­ed to of­fer this ser­vice be­cause peo­ple shop here, buy all kinds of things, and then they don’t have the mon­ey to ship it,” she said.