Some of the container vans that were offloaded at West Harbor are photographed by a crewmember of a cargo ship leaving the harbor on Monday.
DUE to a delay in offloading shipments, a cargo ship that arrived on Rota Sunday returned to Guam with four container vans still on board.
As a result, two supermarkets and a hardware store on Rota did not receive their scheduled shipment, leaving the businesses without new supplies.
According to one of the business owners, the cargo ship with 15 container vans on board arrived at Rota West Harbor in the morning of Sunday and departed for Guam Monday. The stevedores of Rota Terminal and Transfer Co. Inc. offloaded only 11 of the 15 containers.
Two of the four container vans were consigned to Harvest Mart, one to Sinapalo Safeway Store and one to Ace Hardware.
Rota Terminal and Transfer President Viola H. Atalig said on Thursday that she could not comment because she was too busy with customers. She, however, said that she would send a statement when she’s ready.
The matter was brought to the attention of Commonwealth Ports Authority Executive Director Christopher Tenorio on Thursday by Sen. Paul A. Manglona who quoted the affected business owners as telling him that “RTT has been doing this for a long time by slowly discharging so that they can build up charges.”
The billings for stevedoring services, Manglona said, range from $20,000 to $30,000.
He asked Tenorio to investigate the matter expeditiously and notify him within seven days if any remedial action is taken by CPA in response to the report.
The incident, the senator added, “constitutes yet the latest material breach of CPA-RTT lease agreement.”
He said CPA’s action should include the termination of the lease agreement. CPA should then conduct a public bidding for a new stevedoring services contractor at Rota West Harbor, he added.
Manglona said the people of Rota “cannot, must not, and will not wait for another three years for CPA to remedy this abject travesty contributing overwhelmingly to the absurdly exorbitant costs of all commodities, from groceries to building materials, farming equipment, appliances, healthcare products from which the Rota community suffers.”
Manglona said he couldn’t help but agree with the sentiments of the businesses that were affected by these “countless number of irregularities” at Rota West Harbor.
