Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine said a barge has been se­cured as an in­ter­im mea­sure to move car­go to To­ba­go fol­low­ing dam­age to the MV Blue Wave Har­mo­ny.

Au­gus­tine said the Port Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go has en­gaged a 67-me­tre barge for ten days, start­ing to­mor­row, to trans­port goods that can­not be ac­com­mo­dat­ed on pas­sen­ger ves­sels. The barge will car­ry car­go in ex­cess of 7,000 kilo­grammes, in­clud­ing dan­ger­ous goods, live­stock and bulk car­go, and will op­er­ate on an ap­point­ment-based book­ing sys­tem. It can ac­com­mo­date about 30 trucks per trip. Au­gus­tine said he did not know the cost in­volved.

He al­so con­firmed that NID­CO ad­vised of the rein­tro­duc­tion of the Buc­coo Reef from Mon­day Feb­ru­ary 9, 2026. The ves­sel can ac­com­mo­date about 948 pas­sen­gers and 160 ve­hi­cles.