On Mon­day, there was a news­pa­per ad­ver­tise­ment from the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny (Nid­co) an­nounc­ing that the Gov­ern­ment, through the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port, want­ed to pro­cure a com­mer­cial float­ing dry-dock­ing fa­cil­i­ty to be lo­cat­ed at the Caribbean Dock­yard En­gi­neer­ing Ser­vices Ltd (CDESL al­so known as Cari­doc) in Ch­aguara­mas.

The ad­ver­tise­ment states that re­spon­dents with the req­ui­site tech­ni­cal ex­pe­ri­ence and with a proven track record of pro­vid­ing sim­i­lar fa­cil­i­ties were in­vit­ed to pro­pos­als for the pro­cure­ment of ei­ther:

•↓ A used com­mer­cial float­ing dry dock­ing fa­cil­i­ty no old­er than five years or

• ↓A new build com­mer­cial float­ing dry dock­ing fa­cil­i­ty.

Ac­cord­ing to the ad­ver­tise­ment, sub­mis­sions for the used com­mer­cial dry-dock­ing fa­cil­i­ty will be eval­u­at­ed first and if there are no suit­able sub­mis­sions, Nid­co will then eval­u­ate the sub­mis­sions for a new­ly built fa­cil­i­ty.

The scope of works for the re­quired float­ing dry-dock­ing fa­cil­i­ty in­cludes the fol­low­ing:

• ↓The sup­ply, de­liv­ery, in­stal­la­tion and com­mis­sion­ing of a used or new float­ing dry dock fa­cil­i­ty with com­mer­cial-grade equip­ment;

• ↓The pro­vi­sion and in­stal­la­tion of a suit­able an­chor­ing sys­tem;

• ↓The pro­vi­sion and com­mis­sion­ing of a stand­by gen­er­a­tor, lift­ing equip­ment, fire sup­pres­sion sys­tem, and bal­last­ing sys­tem;

• ↓The pro­vi­sion of a com­pre­hen­sive op­er­a­tions and main­te­nance man­u­al;

• ↓The pro­vi­sion of all rel­e­vant cer­tifi­cates;

• ↓The pro­vi­sion of gen­er­al arrange­ment draw­ings and spec­i­fi­ca­tions.

Now, the rea­son that Nid­co placed the ad­ver­tise­ment on be­half of the Gov­ern­ment is that the State owns the Cari­doc com­mer­cial dry­dock­ing fa­cil­i­ty in Ch­aguara­mas, which was pre­vi­ous­ly owned by a com­pa­ny called CL Ma­rine, a part of CL Fi­nan­cial—In Liq­ui­da­tion.

On Sep­tem­ber 10, 2020, Min­is­ter of Fi­nance, Colm Im­bert, is­sued a news re­lease in which he said that the Gov­ern­ment had com­plet­ed the ac­qui­si­tion of Cari­doc, which is lo­cat­ed in Ch­aguara­mas.

In the news re­lease, Mr Im­bert took the op­por­tu­ni­ty to re­mind the pub­lic that the Gov­ern­ment bailed out the CL Fi­nan­cial group to the tune of in ex­cess of $28 bil­lion and it be­ing the largest cred­i­tor, filed a wind­ing-up pe­ti­tion in the High Court in Ju­ly 2017.

Fol­low­ing the ac­qui­si­tion of CL Ma­rine and its sub­sidiaries, Mr Im­bert said the Gov­ern­ment had cre­at­ed a new 100 per cent State-owned com­pa­ny called the Na­tion­al Ma­rine and Main­te­nance Ser­vices Com­pa­ny Ltd, to man­age the op­er­a­tions of Cari­doc.

That new whol­ly state-owned com­pa­ny had an in­ter­im board, com­pris­ing se­nior pub­lic of­fi­cials, “with an im­me­di­ate man­date to im­ple­ment a prop­er gov­er­nance struc­ture ac­cord­ing to the Com­pa­nies Act and the State En­ter­prise Per­for­mance Mon­i­tor­ing Man­u­al,” ac­cord­ing to the state­ment from the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance.

“A part­ner­ship with a strate­gic pri­vate sec­tor com­pa­ny, such as an ex­pe­ri­enced ship­builder, will be ex­plored in due course,” said the state­ment adding, “It is ex­pect­ed that in ad­di­tion to pri­vate sec­tor cus­tomers, the ship­yard will be utilised to main­tain, ser­vice and re­pair the Gov­ern­ment’s fleet of ves­sels, in­clud­ing the two new Fast Fer­ries, APT James and Buc­coo Reef, and the two new Cape Class mil­i­tary ves­sels, un­der con­struc­tion in Aus­tralia, the Galleons Pas­sage, the ex­ist­ing Coast Guard fleet, among oth­ers.”

In com­ments in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives on Oc­to­ber 14, 2020, Mr Im­bert said the ac­qui­si­tion of CL Ma­rine dealt with three pol­i­cy ob­jec­tives of the Gov­ern­ment.

The first was that the ac­qui­si­tion of CL Ma­rine was part of the debt re­cov­ery from Cli­co, “and through the ac­qui­si­tion of CL Ma­rine (Cari­doc), we have been able to get an as­set val­ued at $119 mil­lion, Madam Speak­er. So we have, in ef­fect, re­cov­ered $119 mil­lion of tax­pay­ers’ mon­ey through the ac­qui­si­tion of CL Ma­rine.”

The sec­ond pol­i­cy ob­jec­tive, as ref­er­enced above, was to main­tain, ser­vice and re­pair the Gov­ern­ment’s fleet of ma­rine ves­sels by con­sol­i­dat­ing that work at a sin­gle lo­ca­tion in Ch­aguara­mas.

“And the third ob­jec­tive, of course, is di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion, Madam Speak­er, be­cause ship­build­ing and ship re­pair is one of the ar­eas that we have ear­marked for di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion,” Im­bert told Par­lia­ment.

The three pol­i­cy ob­jec­tives out­lined by the Min­is­ter of Fi­nance in Oc­to­ber 2020 are com­mend­able. In fact, it is laud­able that some­one in the Gov­ern­ment (per­haps it was Mr Im­bert him­self) had the fore­sight and vi­sion to ac­quire the com­mer­cial dry­dock­ing fa­cil­i­ty in Ch­aguara­mas from the CL Fi­nan­cial group to con­sol­i­date the main­te­nance and ser­vic­ing of the State’s ma­rine as­sets and to set the stage for the di­ver­si­fi­ca­tion of the do­mes­tic econ­o­my.

But is­sues arise

Mr Im­bert’s an­nounce­ments in Sep­tem­ber and Oc­to­ber 2020—when T&T was still in the grip of the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic—should have been fol­lowed by a white pa­per out­lin­ing the Gov­ern­ment’s pol­i­cy on the en­tire ship re­pair in­dus­try in Ch­aguara­mas.

That pol­i­cy doc­u­ment should have set out the mea­sures the Gov­ern­ment in­tend­ed to im­ple­ment to re­turn Ch­aguara­mas to be­ing the pre­mier ship re­pair lo­ca­tion in the Caribbean, lever­ag­ing its unique sta­tus as be­ing a shel­tered penin­su­la on an is­land be­low the hur­ri­cane belt.

In Sep­tem­ber 2020, Mr Im­bert sig­naled the Gov­ern­ment’s in­ten­tion to ex­plore “in due course,” a part­ner­ship with a strate­gic pri­vate sec­tor com­pa­ny, such as an ex­pe­ri­enced ship­builder.

Why was this an­nounce­ment of an in­ten­tion to seek a strate­gic part­ner­ship with a pri­vate sec­tor ship­builder not fol­lowed up by a Re­quest for Pro­pos­als (RFP) tar­get­ing ex­pe­ri­enced ship­builders? Why was such an RFP not is­sued in 2022, when most of the COVID-19 re­stric­tions were lift­ed?

Why, more specif­i­cal­ly, was the RFP not is­sued be­fore Au­gust 27, 2022, when an in­ci­dent oc­curred at the dry­dock­ing fa­cil­i­ty, owned by Cor­po­ra­tion Sole, “which re­sult­ed in its float­ing dry dock be­ing sub­merged?

“This has ren­dered the float­ing dock con­se­quent­ly in­op­er­a­ble for sched­uled client ves­sel ser­vices at this time...The ship­yard re­mains op­er­a­tional and is ex­plor­ing op­tions for re­sump­tion of dry­dock­ing ser­vices at the soon­est pos­si­ble time.”

Why has there been no state­ment from the Gov­ern­ment on the fol­low­ing:

• ↓What caused the float­ing dry dock to sink sud­den­ly?

• ↓What main­te­nance was done on the float­ing dry dock be­tween Sep­tem­ber 2020, when the Gov­ern­ment ac­quired the as­set, and Au­gust 2022, when it sank?

• ↓What was the val­ue of the sunken float­ing dry dock?

• ↓Was the fa­cil­i­ty cov­ered by in­sur­ance and, if it was, what was the ex­tent of the cov­er­age?

• ↓What is the es­ti­mate of the rev­enue that has been fore­gone as a re­sult of the sink­ing of the float­ing dry dock?

• ↓What is the es­ti­mate of the amount of mon­ey the Gov­ern­ment has spent re­pair­ing or main­tain­ing its ma­rine as­sets, since the sink­ing of the float­ing dry dock?

• ↓How much mon­ey has the Gov­ern­ment spent on di­rec­tors and oth­er fees in the pe­ri­od since the as­set was ac­quired?

• ↓Has the sunken float­ing dry dock been re­moved from its lo­ca­tion to make way for ei­ther the new or used fa­cil­i­ty?

• ↓Why was the Na­tion­al Ma­rine and Main­te­nance Ser­vices Com­pa­ny moved from the Min­istry of Fi­nance to the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port in De­cem­ber 2022

• ↓Will the com­pa­nies or in­di­vid­u­als who re­spond to the Nid­co ad­ver­tise­ment be giv­en the an­swers to the ques­tions above?