Leonardo Blair, Staff ReporterHOT ON the heels of a ferocious debate over who is responsible for ships leaving Kingston's port with goods of several merchants and manufacturers, Noel Hylton, president of the Port Authority of Jamaica (PAJ), has offered to help locate the runaway vessels.
The PAJ president made an appeal yesterday to affected manufacturers to submit the name of the ship and the container that have been missing to the PAJ, noting that he would try to assist them as best as possible.
"We will use our best endeavours to get that container back to Kingston as quickly as possible," he said.
Mr. Hylton said the appeal had been published before but that responses had not been coming in as expected. "Only 10 people responded to that advertisement and of the 10, we discovered that their containers were on the port," he said.
He further stated that while some cargo ships have been missing, it is yet to be determined whether the goods on the ships were cargo slated for transshipment.
On Wednesday, Doreen Frankson, president of the Jamaica Manufacturers' Association (JMA), threatened to resign after she was accused on national radio of being mischievous when she pointed out that the ports were having problems.
The problems, she said, were causing manufacturers to lose business and some had been temporarily put out of operation.
She, however, withdrew the threat after JMA members solidly backed up her statements about the problems at the ports.
Various initiatives have been undertaken by the Port Authority to alleviate the situation. These include extending the opening hours and operating on Saturdays and Sundays. Previously, the ports were closed for delivery on Saturday and the container yard was normally closed on Sundays.
