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Yesterday, Sunday I took the ferry from Porto Sherry(Santa Maria) to Cadiz. It's a 45 minute sailing on a Catamaran and costs 2.30 Euros. 

 

The Ferry sails every hour on a Sunday at ten past the hour, returns at twenty to the hour. 

 

Modern, clean, efficient, comfortable, timeous, ...................... across the boiling briny of the Atlantic Ocean. How do the Andalusian - Spanish Governments achieve this?

 

Perhaps, Nicola et al(particularly Brendan Mac Neill SNP MP for the Western Isles) would benefit from a visit - if the Spanish Government still talks to them?

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"Ministers were told that ferry contract was ‘totally off track’"

by Erik Ostergaard, then the chairman of the ferry procurement agency Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited,

Of course, he meant 'off course'...

 

The Scottish Ministers appear to have studiously ignored the advice of their own professionals, and the blame game continues. Derek Mackay, our latter-day Aschenbach, then Finance Minister, looks to be the bookies' favourite to carry whatever can there is to carry. 

Might I offer him -gratis- this defence: it was Michael Gove who declared that the country was sick of experts. Mackay might cite this piece of political wisdom, and claim that he was under its influence, thus allowing some part of the resposibility to lie with the serially sacked Aberdonian fun boy. 

 

Anyhoooo, here is the latest

 

 

Ministers were told that ferry contract was ‘totally off track’

Greig Cameron

Scottish Business Editor

Tuesday July 26 2022, 12.01am, The Times

 

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ministers-were-told-that-ferry-contract-was-totally-off-track-2fxm2xz6g

 

A deal to award the Ferguson shipyard a ferry building contract was “totally off the track of what is normal practice”, Scottish ministers were warned.

Erik Ostergaard, then the chairman of the ferry procurement agency Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited, also had concerns the Inverclyde yard had no track record of building vessels of the scale needed.

His remarks, which emerged in new correspondence published through freedom of information laws, have further fuelled calls for a public inquiry into the ferry debacle which has seen the costs more than doubled to £250 million with the vessels due to be in service next year, five years later than planned.

The original £97 million contract to bolster the public fleet was given to Ferguson in the autumn of 2015.

But disputes over payments and design changes saw the yard go into insolvency in 2019 before it was nationalised by the Scottish government. Neither of the two vessels has been finished, although they are expected to be ready next year, and the original cost has more than doubled.

 

SNP ministers were told in 2015 it was highly unusual to award a shipbuilding contract without a full refund guarantee.

Audit Scotland’s damning report into the episode, published earlier this year, found ministers approved the contract without that standard protection to the public purse.

Derek Mackay, who was transport minister at the time, is said to have had the final decision on the agreement.

 

Ostegaard made his frustrations clear in an email on September 26 just a few weeks before the deal was cleared.

He said: “At present, the bulk of the possible engagement with a newly established shipyard with no track record at all of building ferries of this size, is an unsecured risk equal to about £60 million which is totally off the track of what is normal practice for the shipping industry in respect of contracting for newbuildings.

“There is no way that the board can recommend the Scottish government through CMAL to take this level of unsecured risk on its shoulders.”

Ostegaard pointed to a previous meeting about delays to the delivery of the Loch Seaforth ferry with Keith Brown in 2014 when the then transport minister iterated the need for full guarantees. He also stated he was in favour of scrapping the provisional award for Ferguson and re-tendering the contract.

 

Graham Simpson, the Scottish Conservative transport spokesman, called for a full public inquiry.

 

The Scottish government said: “The contract was awarded by CMAL in its capacity as procuring authority.

“While CMAL did express concerns about the absence of a full refund guarantee, it put measures in place to mitigate those risks.”

 

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