Rhon­da Krys­tal Ram­bal­ly

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar says Gov­ern­ment will re­ceive a re­fund of $1.5 bil­lion af­ter British ship­builders BAE Sys­tems Sur­face Ships' fail­ure to de­liv­er three off­shore pa­trol ves­sels (OPVs) on time. Ad­di­tion­al­ly, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Gov­ern­ment would al­so re­ceive over $61 mil­lion in dam­ages be­cause BAE breached the con­tract. Speak­ing to re­porters at the VIP Lounge at the Pi­ar­co Air­port yes­ter­day morn­ing, Per­sad-Bisses­sar main­tained T&T did not breach its con­tract. Gov­ern­ment served no­tice to end the $1.5 bil­lion con­tract on Sep­tem­ber 17, the Prime Min­is­ter said.

Per­sad-Bisses­sar said Gov­ern­ment had no in­ten­tion of "be­ing se­cre­tive" since there was a non-dis­clo­sure clause in the con­tract. She said BAE breached the con­tract be­cause of de­lays and fail­ure to com­ply with spec­i­fi­ca­tions for which were con­tract­ed. Per­sad-Bisses­sar said: "Be­cause of the de­lays, dam­ages of over $61 mil­lion are al­ready now due and payable by BAE to Trinidad and when the can­cel­la­tion note takes ef­fect next month, the Gov­ern­ment will be­come en­ti­tled, amongst oth­er things, to a full re­fund of monies paid to BAE for the un­de­liv­ered ves­sels." She added that de­lay was the most sub­stan­tial cause for ter­mi­na­tion of the con­tract.

She said giv­en the coun­try's eco­nom­ic cir­cum­stances, Gov­ern­ment was not pre­pared to waive the breach­es. She said the coun­try could not af­ford the costs to main­tain the ves­sels which were close to $500 mil­lion a year. "Do we need three OPVs? The coun­try is not at war out in the seas. The coun­try is at war on the ground, in our streets and in the towns and with­in Trinidad and To­ba­go," Per­sad-Bisses­sar said. She said the mon­ey could be bet­ter spent on health care, ed­u­ca­tion and pay­ing "more mon­ey" to the po­lice and pris­ons and mem­bers of the De­fence Force.

BAE an­nounced the can­cel­la­tion on its stock ex­change last week which freed Gov­ern­ment to speak about the is­sue, Per­sad-Bisses­sar said. "We are pre­pared to talk with them and we will do so with­out prej­u­dice be­cause I do not want to com­pro­mise our le­gal po­si­tion," she said. She added the OPVs were slow and nar­co-traf­fick­ers would spot them from afar. See page A9