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Chief Sec­re­tary Far­ley Au­gus­tine says a barge has been se­cured to move car­go to To­ba­go as an in­ter­im mea­sure while re­pair work on the MV Blue Wave Har­mo­ny con­tin­ues.

Speak­ing at the post-Ex­ec­u­tive Coun­cil Me­dia Brief­ing yes­ter­day, Au­gus­tine said the Port Au­thor­i­ty of Trinidad and To­ba­go has en­gaged a 67-me­tre barge for a ten-day pe­ri­od, start­ing to­mor­row, to trans­port car­go that can­not be car­ried on the pas­sen­ger ves­sels. The barge will move loads over 7,000 kilo­grammes, in­clud­ing dan­ger­ous car­go, live­stock and bulk items, us­ing an ap­point­ment-based book­ing sys­tem, and can ac­com­mo­date about 30 trucks at a time, he said.

Au­gus­tine con­firmed that fi­nal weld­ing works to re­pair hull dam­age on the Blue Wave Har­mo­ny be­gan on Wednes­day and are ex­pect­ed to take four full days. He said an­oth­er in­spec­tion will fol­low, with NID­CO pro­ject­ing the ves­sel’s re­turn to full ser­vice by Wednes­day next week.