‘A Strain on Poor Families’: President Ali, Minister Indar Challenge Shipping Industry on Aging Ports and Punitive Demurrage Fees at CSA Conference

By Alethea Grant | HGP Nightly News |

GEORGETOWN, GUYANA — Outdated port infrastructure and elevated freight rates across the Caribbean are directly eroding household purchasing power, creating what President Dr. Mohamed Irfaan Ali described as an acute “cost-of-living problem and a competitiveness problem” for regional economies.

Delivering the feature address at the opening of the Caribbean Shipping Association’s (CSA) 56th Annual General Meeting, Conference and Exhibition at the Guyana Marriott Hotel on Monday, October 26, 2026, President Ali revealed that freight and logistics charges across nearly every Caribbean territory remain well above the global average.

The Head of State warned that regional ports cannot achieve modern connectivity while operating with aging physical facilities designed for a bygone era.

Joining the critique, Minister of Public Utilities and Aviation Deodat Indar took aim at shipping lines and terminal operators over excessive demurrage charges, branding the fees a punitive penalty that directly inflates retail grocery prices for working-class families.

Convened under the theme “Building a More Connected, Resilient, and Competitive Caribbean,” the four-day regional conference (October 25–28) brought together maritime delegates, port authorities, terminal operators, and international financiers from across the hemisphere.

The Capital Investment Gap: Modernizing 50-Year-Old Ports

President Ali linked above-average shipping charges to structural bottlenecks: aging and uneven harbor facilities, shallow draft depths, sluggish intra-regional trade lanes, exposure to climate disasters, and shifting geopolitical headwinds.

• Aging Infrastructure: Citing regional studies, President Ali noted that most Caribbean maritime terminals are half a century old or older, built for smaller conventional freighters rather than modern containerized shipping.
• Call for a Regional Policy Blueprint: The President challenged the CSA, the Caribbean Development Bank (CDB), the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), and IDB Invest to stop treating maritime logistics as an afterthought and draft a bankable regional policy framework to mobilize international private capital.
• No Room for Timidity: The Guyanese leader urged regional maritime leaders to move beyond isolated discussions and adopt an aggressive investment mindset.

“Because when you look at the ecosystem, what is required immediately now is investment, capital investment if we are to be competitive, and we cannot lock out the potential investors in investment… You have to be aggressive. You have to be willing to open up the market. We have to be willing to bring partners together. But we can only do so if we create the model, if we’re able to proactively sell the model.”

Demurrage Under Fire: ‘We Detest It; It Is an Added Cost That Should Not Be There’

Addressing the audience, Minister of Public Utilities and Aviation Deodat Indar addressed terminal delays and storage penalties that drive up landing costs for local importers:

• Logistics Sluggishness: Indar urged the shipping conference to confront fleet modernization, slow turnaround times, and bureaucratic customs hurdles that hold cargo at docks.
• The Demurrage Burden: Indar singled out container demurrage—fees levied by shipping agents when cargo exceeds allotted free container time (currently capped at three days in Guyana’s ports)—arguing that terminal congestion unfairly penalizes local businesses.
• Passing the Cost to Consumers: Indar underscored that brokers and importers do not absorb these compounding penalties; they pass them directly onto consumers, pushing the price of basic food items and construction aggregates higher.

“Then we are faced with demurrage, something that we all detest. And I hear the murmuring in the room: Demurrage! We detest it. I repeat, we detest it. It is an added cost that should not be there. It is a strain on the consumer, on poor families across economies, including ours.”

CSA President William Brown: ‘A Seat at the Decision Table’

Speaking on behalf of the shipping industry, CSA President William Brown acknowledged the need for modernization, but pointed out that regional operators have historically been excluded from international policy design:

• Rule Takers vs. Rule Makers: Brown argued that Caribbean maritime stakeholders have too often been required to comply with global decarbonization, emissions, and security mandates without having a direct hand in negotiating the timelines or financial assistance mechanisms.
• Institutional Alignment: Over the past year, the CSA has expanded formal consultations with multilateral financiers, including the IDB, the World Bank, and the regional bureau of the International Maritime Organization (IMO), to secure funding for port modernization and fleet renewal.

“Our region has too often been asked to adopt rules it had little input in writing, to accept changes we had little hand in helping to create.”

With Guyana expanding dredging works and private terminal developments along the Demerara River corridor, the conference concluded that without coordinated capital investment and an overhaul of punitive terminal fees, Caribbean consumers will continue to pay an outsized premium on daily essentials.