Residents, Visitors, Immigration, Ports & Customs staff get rainy welcome
The situation in Road Town at the Tortola Pier Park (TPP) tender dock, which is temporarily being used by ferries to transport passengers between Tortola and the United States Virgin Islands (USVI), is much the same.
The civil servants and other public officers, who work at the makeshift set up since hurricanes Irma and Maria wreaked havoc on the BVI Ports Authority building on the waterfront last September 2017, are working under stressful and sometimes shameful conditions.
What happens when it rains?
When it rains, Immigration, Customs and BVI Ports Authority officers get wet once a ferry is offloading passengers at the TPP dock. When the line is long, visitors and residents entering the Territory must stand in the rain or run back to the ferry, if it’s still at port for shelter.
In addition, the Immigration tents are not joined with Customs’, so once you finished with immigration, in order not to hold up the line, you must walk or run in the rain to the other tents that house the Customs Department at TPP.
Even if you are also going to pay your Duties or Environmental Levy, once it is raining, you will also get wet standing outside the gazebo like booth where payments are made to Customs officers.
Furthermore, if after the passengers disembark the vessel and it leaves immediately, your goods will be left on the tender dock and may get soaked, as was the case this Saturday February 18, 2018.
Our roving camera observed goods on the dock that was in the rain. There was even a cat getting drenched.
While we are aware that there were two Category 5 hurricanes that destroyed the Territory’s infrastructure, it’s now five months later and not even a temporary structure is being built to ensure that public officers work in a safe and conducive environment and residents and visitors coming to the Tortola port of entry will have some kind of welcoming experience.
How long will these conditions remain?
Efforts to get a comment from the Commissioner of Customs Mr Wade N. Smith and Acting Chief Immigration Officer Mrs Geraldine Ritter-Freeman were unsuccessful up to time of publication.
It is unclear when the BVI Ports Authority building that housed Customs and Immigration at the Road Town Waterfront port of entry will be restored and reopened.
But then again, bad welcoming experience, or poor staff working conditions or not, the Virgin Islands is open for business, according to Premier Dr The Honourable D. Orlando Smith (AL).
See link to related article:
.png)
Follow Us On
10 Responses to “Residents, Visitors, Immigration, Ports & Customs staff get rainy welcome”
All that money spent to build the TPP and nobody thought to build some overhead protection near the docks. The ferry terminal in Red Hook, St. Thomas is/was a good example of practical commercial all-weather marine construction.