The Down­town Own­ers and Mer­chants As­so­ci­a­tion (DO­MA) is warn­ing that in­ef­fi­cien­cies at the Port of Port of Spain and in Cus­toms op­er­a­tions are reach­ing “a cri­sis point”.

In a re­lease, DO­MA said the Port is now list­ed by ship­ping lines as the slow­est in the Caribbean, with ves­sels wait­ing up to two weeks be­yond their sched­uled dock­ing dates.

Some ship­ping lines have start­ed di­vert­ing car­go to Point Lisas to save time. But DO­MA said Cus­toms re­cent­ly closed its Point Lisas of­fice, forc­ing all doc­u­ment sub­mis­sions to the San Fer­nan­do of­fice—adding de­lays be­cause of the dis­tance and ex­tra work­load.