CARGO ships, delayed in the Kingston Harbour because of congestion on the container wharves, are now under threat from "pirates", who have robbed at least two vessels in the past fortnight, reliable sources said last night.

Back-up in Kingston Harbour makes vessels vulnerable

Two of the many ships waiting to offload cargo in Kingston harbour. (Photo: Joseph Wellington)

The Marine Police claimed to have had no knowledge of recent incidents of the robbers and Inspector Oral Harrison said it was "quite a while" since the division had received any such report.
But according to Observer sources, the most recent incident occurred aboard a Hamburg-Sud vessel when bandits went abroad and robbed the crew and stole other items.

An inventory of the stolen items could not be ascertain last night, but according to shipping sources the line's insurers and the Jamaican law firm, Myers Fletcher Gordon were dealing with the incident.
"It is a regular occurrence for them (ships anchored in the harbour waiting to be berthed) to be robbed," said an Observer source. "The fact (is) that they are just sitting out there."

About a dozen vessels are now in the roadway to the harbour, backed up by the inability of the Kingston Container Terminal to clear containers as fast as they arrive - the result of a one-fourth increase in volume since mid-year, compounded by delays and back-ups caused by a series of hurricanes that hit Caribbean and US ports this year.

The Kingston Container Terminal, one the region's busiest transshipment ports, has the capacity to handle 1.2 million 20-foot equivalent containers annually, but with one of its frequent expansions now underway this will soon move to 1.5 million containers.

Further expansion is already on the drawing board.
But even with its rapid growth over the past decade, the port, in the current circumstance, has found it difficult to handle the traffic, forcing it to close for a day on November 28 to separate transshipment and domestic containers.

The upshot has been the congestion in the roadway and the lingering of vessels, which security sources say make them prey for the 'pirates', who apparently reach the ships under the cover of darkness in small boats.

While saying that there had been a decline in ship robberies - "That may be because we have stepped up our operations in that area" - the Marine Police's Inspector Harrison conceded that it was a problem in the past.

Container vessels were the prime targets for robbers, because they were more accessible, he said. "The ones that are waiting to be offloaded are the targets because the weight of the cargo actually pushes the vessels down more into the water," he said.

In the past, he said, the robbers have made off with tins of marine paint, as well as rope and other items. "They have a ready market for that paint because it is very expensive," he said.

The stolen items, he said, usually turn up in the Hellshire Beach and Greenwich Farm beach areas.
"That is where we find the stolen items," he said.

martina@jamaicaobserver.com

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