Fast ferry purchase ‘in limbo’ says London

The much-anticipated purchase of a new fast ferry to operate on the domestic sea-bridge between Trinidad and Tobago is now “in limbo,” Tobago House of Assembly (THA) Chief Secretary Orville London reported Thursday afternoon. He made the disclosure in a statement to the media during the tea-break at the regular monthly plenary sitting of the Assembly. Following a number of promises, an announcement was made a couple months ago that a new ferry would have been on the problem-ridden inter-island service by December.

However, London reported that these negotiations have been put on hold as Cabinet deemed the arrangement too costly. He acknowledged that they have been in discussions “for an extended period” with an Australian firm, INCATH Ltd, on the procurement of a new fast ferry. London told reporters: “The original negotiations involved the purchase of a new fast ferry at a cost of somewhere in the vicinity of between $90 to $100 million. “What happened, of course, is that there was a problem in relationship to the ‘out’ clause; because basically with that kind of investment the company was unwilling, and that is understandable, to allow the Government an ‘out’ clause whereby, if the ship did not live up to the expectations, we would have been able to get out of it,” he reported.

“Basically, if even though we wanted to lease the ship, we had to do it for a minimum of seven years as long as the ship was proven to be mechanically sound. Obviously, with an investment of that type, it was extremely difficult to take that kind of risk especially with a technology about which we were not totally sure.” London added: “The next option was to do a wetlease of another ferry, a two-year-old ferry, and again there have been some problems in relationship to the financial arrangements. So that is in limbo and the decision was taken that rather than continue waiting and keeping the public of Tobago waiting while we doing the bickering, that we follow the same kind of policy in relationship to the airbridge where you use a wetlease arrangement for a six-month period and that would sort of take care of the immediate problems, and then by the end of that period you would be in a position to do the purchasing,” he explained.

In that regard, London announced that the Port Authority would be inviting public tenders for a wetlease of a passenger/cargo roll-on-roll-off ferry for the inter-island service. Tender documents will be opened on September 10 and evaluated by October, “and then the wetlease should really run from November 2004 to April 2005.” He reported that “Cabinet has also approved the purchase of two conventional ferries and a cargo vessel. “The time frame in this regard is that invitations to tender should be between September and November, and the first ferry should be acquired between December and January, and the second ferry by February,” he said. At the same time, London however assured that the THA was still committed to the fast-ferry concept.

“We believe that the fast ferry still has the potential to bring significant benefits to Tobago, and it is not a concept that we are totally disregarding at this point in time,” he told journalists. “But the arithmetic and the finances have to be worked out, and until such time as we can work that out, the decision was made that we should have the wetlease of the conventional ferry and the purchase of the conventional ferries and the cargo vessel so as to ensure that when we do make a final decision or until we make a final decision on the fast ferry, that the question of services to Tobago will be taken care of,” London said.