MV Sonia still not moving

The MV Sonia is still docked at the Port-of-Spain Cruise Ship Complex after four days of reassurances from the Port Authority of Trinidad and Tobago (PATT) that the boat would sail. When Newsday asked Public Relations Officer, Betty Ann Gibbons, when the US$24,000 a day boat would be back on stream, she replied: “I don’t know.” Works Minister Franklin Khan continued to deny any financial problems with the Sonia, saying it was a fuel pump malfunction. “We haven’t paid in three days because she is docked, but it is not a financial issue.

She is a great vessel,” he said. One official told Newsday that it was a prelubrial oil pump, and it takes three months to get it from the manufacturer. “It was never an oil problem because that is giving our country a bad name,” he disclosed. “We have high grade oil. The engine needs to prelubricate before it starts and it can’t start cold.” He also added that it would be detrimental to start the engine without prelubricating it. “The manufacturers don’t keep the pump in stock, and right now we are overhauling it because we are engineers.” He said the pump weighs over 300 pounds and costs a few thousand dollars. “We are trying to get an alternative.”