How SNP’s shipyard fiasco cost you £50m
TAXPAYERS are owed more than £50million following the collapse of the Ferguson Marine shipyard.
Administrators for the Port Glasgow site have revealed that the Scottish Government is owed £49.7million, while Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs is owed £426,000.
The Scottish Government had previously disclosed that it had handed £45million of commercial loans to the operator of the shipyard but interest is also applied.
A ‘statement of affairs’ published by administrator Deloitte also reveals that two heavily delayed CalMac ferries being built on the site as part of a £97million contract have been valued at £48.3million.
SNP ministers want to nationalise the site if no private buyers can rescue it from collapse.
Work on the contract has stalled because of a dispute between Ferguson and the Scottish Government quango Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL) over who pays the extra costs for the delayed project.
The financial figures also show Jim McColl, whose firm Clyde Blowers Capital saved Ferguson from closure in 2014, is still owed £3million, while £1million is due to the European Commission and a further £3.9million is owed to business creditors, including a number of local Inverclyde companies.
Jamie Greene, transport spokesman for the Scottish Conservatives, said: ‘A full parliamentary inquiry is essential to get to the bottom of why the SNP let things go so catastrophically wrong at Ferguson Marine Engineering (FMEL) and come clean over the role they played in its demise.’
A Scottish Government spokesman said: ‘At all points the Scottish Government has acted to ensure the completion of the ferry contracts, the protection of jobs and a future for the Ferguson shipyard and that remains our priority.
‘The Scottish Government provided two commercial loans totalling £45million to FMEL on which interest applies.’
Last month, Mr McColl accused First Minister Nicola Sturgeon of failing to act during the past two years to resolve the contract dispute and said Finance Secretary Derek Mackay had created a ‘circus’ when he stepped in to rescue the firm.
The businessman, also an economic adviser to the Scottish Government, told the Financial Times: ‘It is appalling the way they have acted. There is a real danger they might put off potential buyers.’
‘Come clean over role in its demise’