Richard Lord

Leader of the Op­po­si­tion Dr Kei­th Row­ley says Gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion to can­cel the pur­chase of three Off­shore Pa­trol Ves­sels (OPVs) will lead to T&T be­com­ing the gun and drugs cap­i­tal of the West In­dies. For­mer Works and Trans­port Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert said it would lead to a lawyers' par­adise when the mat­ter was tak­en to court.

Row­ley and Im­bert made those pro­nounce­ments dur­ing the Peo­ple's Na­tion­al Move­ment's (PNM) sec­ond bi-month­ly news con­fer­ence at Row­ley's Charles Street of­fice, Port-of-Spain, yes­ter­day. They have been crit­i­cal of the Gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion to can­cel the con­tract for the pur­chase of the OPVs from British ship­builders, BAE Sys­tems.

Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar said the con­tract was be­ing can­celled part­ly be­cause of the com­pa­ny's fail­ure to meet the de­liv­ery dead­lines. "This Gov­ern­ment is build­ing up a li­a­bil­i­ty for us in some­body's court, leav­ing us naked off the east and north coasts and lead­ing us to be the gun cap­i­tal of the West In­dies, the drug cap­i­tal of the West In­dies and all that goes with that. That is what we're get­ting from this Gov­ern­ment's de­ci­sion," Row­ley said. He added: "What we have in T&T to­day is a con­fused Gov­ern­ment, an econ­o­my that's grind­ing to a halt and de­ci­sion-mak­ing that de­fies log­ic." In re­sponse to ques­tions, Row­ley said the new Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment can­celled the con­tract "be­cause they (it) came in­to of­fice with a bias against the con­tract and there were peo­ple in the cur­rent Gov­ern­ment who had in­ter­ests in failed bid­ders."

With­out call­ing names, Row­ley said: "Now that they have in­flu­ence over the Gov­ern­ment, those in­flu­ences are be­ing brought to bear in this cock-eyed de­ci­sion-mak­ing process." Row­ley said the Eng­lish ship­builder had agreed to stand li­a­bil­i­ty for the de­lay in sup­ply­ing the ves­sels. The T&T Guardian ob­tained a doc­u­ment en­ti­tled: Note for the Min­is­te­r­i­al Com­mit­tee for the Pur­chase of Mil­i­tary As­sets for use by the Trinidad and To­ba­go De­fence Force (Coast Guard and Air Guard) April 21, 2010. It dealt with "an en­hanced pack­age of goods and ser­vices which would com­pen­sate the Gov­ern­ment of T&T for re­lin­quish­ing its rights to ter­mi­nate the con­tract and for re­set­tling the pro­gramme de­liv­ery dates for the three OPVs. The pack­age was en­dorsed by the Gov­ern­ment's Min­is­te­r­i­al Com­mit­tee.

The docum­ment stat­ed:

�2 BAE Sys­tems would sup­ply free of charge and as a con­trac­tor-fur­nished equip­ment un­der the ship­build­ing agree­ment ex­e­cut­ed on April 5, 2007, six Fast In­ter­cep­tor Craft (FIC) and as­so­ci­at­ed train­ing, project man­age­ment and MSP sup­port, val­ued at (pounds ster­ling) 8,925,000;

�2 BAE Sys­tems would de­liv­er MSP sup­port to the in­ter­im ves­sels now Coastal Pa­trol Ves­sels (CPV) with­out any ad­di­tion­al charge un­til the ex­piry of the in­ter­im ves­sel main­te­nance sup­port pe­ri­od, de­ter­mined by ref­er­ence to the ac­tu­al de­liv­ery of the rel­e­vant OPVs in ac­cor­dance with the agree­ment;

�2 BAE Sys­tems would pro­vide, free of charge, three Pa­cif­ic 24 rigid in­flat­able boats (PACs), val­ued at (pounds ster­ling) 587,000; and,

�2 BAE Sys­tems would pro­vide free of charge, sup­port and main­te­nance ser­vices for a 12-month pe­ri­od for eight PACs which would be in the T&T Coast Guard fleet at a cost of (pounds ster­ling) 400,000.

More in­fo

Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Brigadier John Sandy says the three Off­shore Pa­trol Ves­sels or­dered by the for­mer Gov­ern­ment were de­fec­tive and would not be ac­quired by the new Peo­ple's Part­ner­ship Gov­ern­ment. Sandy said so dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to Fri­day's de­bate on a pri­vate mo­tion on the ves­sels by Op­po­si­tion Leader Dr Kei­th Row­ley.

The mo­tion called on the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives to ex­press its deep dis­ap­point­ment and se­ri­ous con­cerns over the Gov­ern­ment de­ci­sion to can­cel the pur­chase of the ves­sels. The mo­tion was de­feat­ed as the Op­po­si­tion did not had the re­quired sim­ple ma­jor­i­ty for ap­proval. Sandy said the man­u­fac­tur­ers had in­di­cat­ed they were un­able to rec­ti­fy the de­fect one of the ves­sel had.

He said if they could not fix the de­fect in one they would not be able to fix it in any of the OPVs. He said the T&T Gov­ern­ment would not al­low sol­diers to use those OPVs be­cause they would be "sit­ting ducks" in them. He said the re­al cost of the OPVs was $5.1 bil­lion.