And while the commission looks forward to completing its reports by November 30th, Hugh O Brien has already finished his work as the Independent expert conducting an analysis to determine whether terminal handling charges and throughput fees being passed on by ASR/BSI are justified.
It's a part of the company's new shipping arrangement with the Big Creek Port. O'Brien found there are massive savings being realized by virtue of this move away from the Port of Belize:
Hugh O'Brien, Lead Coordinator for Commission of Inquiry
"In the case of the shipping of sugar, the bulk sugar, which shipped by big trucks, and taken down to Big Creek, then there's a throughput fee that is charged at the Big Creek port, and again, I delve into the numbers, visited the port, saw the operations, I delved into the invoices, and I confirmed even the contract that was signed between the parties, I even went as far as to look at what is done for other industries that ship products to the Big Creek port, like oil that used to be exported, like the butane that arrives and is imported, and also other people who ship things to the Big Creek port."
"So I look at Santander, even Santander their figures, I looked at, and I confirmed again in that specific case that the throughput charges are justified, and in fact, I went farther to compare what for a period of five years, year by year, shipment by shipment, what was the cost of each shipment through the Belize City port before using the stevedores, and I compared that with the cost at the Big Creek port, and I concluded, and I did a comparison for each year that the fees are actually lower for moving sugar through the port at the Big Creek port, significantly lower than using the Belize City port."
"I will make one more point there is that these, we're normally exporting 50, 60,000 tons of bulk sugar, and that would take six, seven, eight, nine, up to nine ships, up to 10 ships, sometime through the Belize City port, and some of those ships took 30, 40 days to load."
"At the Big Creek port, these ships are taken in five, six days to load, and they only do two shipments a year. So you're blowing 30,000 tons or 25,000 tons in five days or six days, versus in the previous system, you take you to load 10,000 tons in the Belize City case, will take you 30, 35, 40 days."
"So from my efficiency standpoint, it's a big plus for the industry in general."
