Unused second-hand ferry cost $64M in repairs
(Trinidad Guardian) The Works Ministry has ordered the sale of a second-hand ferry acquired by the National Infrastructure Development Company (Nidco) which has cost the government $64.2 million to repair, yet has never been used yet. Works Minister Jack Warner who revealed the situation in the Lower House on Friday said the ministry had not approved the latest contract requested for the ferry, pending a review of the situation. He cited a number of questions surrounding Nidco’s acquisition of the ferry, the HSV Su, which was supposed to be used as a water taxi between Port-of-Spain and San Fernando.
Warner said the ministry had instructed Nidco to cease any further repair on the 14-year-old vessel and to obtain an international shipping broker to sell it on the second-hand market.
The catamaran vessel with 450 passenger capacity was purchased second hand, in 2008, by Nidco, at a cost of approximately US$3.29 million (TT$20 million) from Unal Caginer, a hotelier based in Cyprus, he said. This means that $84 million has been spent on the vessel. Warner said the vessel was inspected in Turkey and registered with a local Turkish classification society which was not a member of the International Association of Classification Societies. “Therefore the maintenance, repair and operation was not subject to strict enforcement of safety standards, characteristic of international classification societies,” Warner said.
In July 2008, the UK firm Seaspeed Consulting Ltd contracted by Nidco surveyed and evaluated the vessel. However, this was done in the water without a full hull inspection and without guarantee or assurances from the surveyor. Warner said a recommendation to conduct repairs in Curacao was made along with the purchase proposal by the previous Minister of State in the Works Ministry, Roger Joseph, and Nidco’s past president Kaisah Ince.
A substantial amount of work was done in Curacao by marine surveyor/consultant Darren Edwards of HSC Global Marine Ltd. The budgeted cost of that job was £750,000. The vessel was then towed to Inter Isle Construction and Fabrication shipyard in Chaguaramas where Warner said it had been docked since December 2008 undergoing periodic repairs.It was later inspected on Nidco’s request by representatives of Austal which submitted a bid for the service. In July 2009, the UK survey firm McAusland and Turner also surveyed the repair work done in Curacao.
They advised that the consultant Edwards “had not completed a comprehensive specification” of the repair work to be done” as a result of which the entire Curacao job was “mismanaged to the extent of gross incompetence.” In August 2009, the ministry requested a statement from Nidco showing the actual and estimated additional cost budgeted for the vessel’s repair and a proposed date for entry into service.
This was given as $29.5 million with a target date for service from mid-December 2009.The ministry again took up the issue of repair cost with Nidco in view of the impending delivery of four new fast ferries from September 2010.
