Faced with claims from a major international company that their effort to go independent will jeopardize safety in Freeport Harbour, the head of a group of marine pilots said it is the Freeport Harbour Company and BORCO's resistance to their proposal which threatens to create either a "very dangerous" or a very much slowed business environment in Freeport by the end of the month.
Pointing to what may transpire when the resignation of marine pilots - who help guide large vessels into Freeport Harbour - from the Freeport Harbour Company takes effect on March 28, Erin Ferguson, president of the Bahamas Marine Pilots Association (BMPA), said that if the pilots are not permitted by the company to offer their services to large vessels coming into Freeport, then the harbor area will "become a parking lot" full of ships waiting to dock, as there will simply be too few qualified marine pilots available.
If they are not banned from operating in the harbor area, but their former employers attempt to compete with them to provide pilotage services to ships coming into the harbor, a "competitive pilotage" scenario will emerge, which evidence shows could significantly increase the likelihood of major maritime incidents, said Ferguson. He claimed that a number of large companies bringing ships into Freeport have assured the former Freeport Harbour Company pilots that they will try to continue using their services come March 28, out of concern that they have fully qualified and experienced pilots on board their boats.
Ferguson said that having pilots from different companies fighting over who will get the business in the harbor does not bode well for safety. His position is supported by a number of international entities such as the American Pilots Association, the Houston Pilots association, and the International Maritime Pilots Association, in letters seen by Guardian Business. He added that the pilots hope their former employers would step aside and recognize their independent organization as the legitimate provider of pilotage services in the Freeport Harbour area. He went as far as to suggest that unless an independent pilotage authority is established, insurers may reconsider their desire to insure ships coming into the Freeport area.
Since 15 marine pilots resigned at the beginning of the month, BORCO and the Freeport Harbour Company have so far committed to not engaging the services of those pilots, who resigned to form the Freeport Pilotage Company. The pilots had provided services which impact both the Freeport Harbor, the Freeport Container Port, cruise vessel terminal berths and the BORCO island oil terminal.
Stating that they have "contingency measures in place", Freeport Harbour Company called the efforts of the pilots an attempt to "force the Harbour Company to hand over its investments, legal and rightful business to them" and said it "will not succeed".
BORCO, in a statement issued yesterday, suggested the pilots do not have the financial capability or experience to go solo, while other Freeport sources against the pilots' efforts have questioned their ability to get a business license to operate.
Both companies have suggested they will simply replace the pilots, and have begun advertising for replacements, but Ferguson told Guardian Business that there are too few qualified pilots remaining with the two companies at present to handle the workload, and any new pilots that arrive between now and March 28 will be far from qualified to guide ships into the harbor, given the stringent experience requirements.
"Even if a qualified pilot came over from Nassau to Freeport tomorrow it would take him two years to train to be qualified to guide ships in Freeport," said Ferguson, describing the vast array of training and qualifications pilots need to be deemed qualified to operate in any given environment.
For this reason, and in light of what he said have been commitments from the government to date not to provide work permits to foreign pilots given the existence of qualified Bahamian pilots, he charged that the BMPA is in a strong position to achieve its goals and he only hopes that its former employers will back down. He suggested that the Freeport Harbour Company has collected significant revenue from providing the pilotage services itself, and larger questions about "who controls Freeport" are standing in the way of a resolution.
The Bahamas Marine Pilots Association was established by a group of former Freeport Harbour Company marine pilots who are seeking to now provide their services to vessels coming into the area independently, rather than as employees of the Freeport Harbour Company or BORCO, as before. Out of this grouping, the Freeport Pilotage Company was established, and will operate based on a license obtained in the 1990s, suggested Ferguson.
They claim that it is in the interests of safety and security in the harbor that they render their services in this way, pointing in particular to claims that they suffered from an insufficient training as employees of BORCO and the Freeport Harbour Company, and evidence that it is considered best practice to have independent pilotage in most major ports. The pilots have pointed to incidents such as when a ship dropped an anchor on a Bahamas Telecommunications Company undersea cable, and the grounding of the crude oil tanker Formosa Falcon on a nearby beach, as examples of why the harbor would be better served by an independent and appropriately trained pilotage service.
Ferguson said that as an independent grouping, they would ensure that funds raised from fees charged for piloting services would go towards ensuring all pilots receive the appropriate training that they need to be considered fully qualified.
Their efforts to form a pilotage association and operate independently in a non-competitive pilotage have won the support of international groups such as the American Pilots Association, the Houston Pilots Association and the International Maritime Pilots Association.
BORCO and the Freeport Harbour Company have denied the pilots' claims regarding safety issues in the Freeport Harbour under the former system of pilotage.
Contrary to claims by BORCO, in a statement released yesterday, that the group is simply seeking a monopoly over pilotage in Freeport, Ferguson said that they simply want to see The Bahamas abide by International Maritime Organization (IMO) standards that call for a legal framework that would allow for an authority that would set fees and standards. "The pilots only want to pilot," he said, suggesting financial gain is not the motivation for their move.
Responding to statements made by BORCO yesterday in which it condemned the actions by the pilots, and pointed to the fact that "there are many ports throughout the world where the pilotage services are provided by the port users and not an independent association", Ferguson said the difference between the jurisdictions highlighted by BORCO where pilotage is provided by the port itself and The Bahamas is a matter of scale.
And in response to an assertion that the group lacks the financial capability to launch its services, Ferguson said that this is a red herring since their primary resource is their intellectual property, and the remaining infrastructural needs can be easily obtained.
BORCO stated: "Maintaining management control of our marine operations is the best option for BORCO and Grand Bahama. Establishing a for-profit, monopoly pilotage service without resources or sustaining capabilities will not increase safe marine operations, and is in fact irresponsible and driven by financial gain."
Efforts to reach the Freeport Harbour Company were unsuccessful, as representatives did not respond to requests for comment up to press time.

Click here to read more at The Nassau Guardian