Almighty £240m ferries cover-up
First Minister grilled over key missing paperwork
NICOLA Sturgeon has been accused of an ‘almighty cover-up’ over the ferries fiasco amid claims a key document may have been ‘illegally destroyed’.
Despite being asked four times yesterday, she failed to explain what had happened to the formal record of the decision to proceed with the contract award.
The contract to build two CalMac ferries was handed to the Ferguson Marine shipyard in 2015 despite concerns raised by Caledonian Maritime Assets Limited (CMAL).
Costs of the debacle have soared from the original £97million contract price to £206million, and this is forecast to rise to £240million by the time the vessels are eventually finished.
Scottish Conseervative leader Douglas Ross said the Scottish Government’s claim that it cannot find paperwork recording the decision to go ahead with the ferries contract award was ‘laughable’.
He added: ‘A few weeks ago the First Minister was telling us a big boy did it and ran away, now the dog has eaten all her homework. First Minister, these excuses would not cut it in a primary school classroom, so do you really expect anyone to believe this?’
Miss Sturgeon said 200 documents relating to the contract have been published.
She conceded that the formal record of the decision to proceed was not available, but insisted this was ‘no evidence’ the paperwork had been withheld.
Miss Sturgeon added that the decision of ministers is ‘narrated’ in a letter of October 2015 from Transport Scotland to CMAL, even though it makes no reference to the reasons for the award.
Mr Ross said: ‘The excuse we have just heard from the First Minister is there are hundreds of documents available, but wow, not the one we need, not the one the Auditor General was looking (for). It has vanished into thin air. ‘So can the First Minister say, with a straight face, that this does not look like an almighty cover-up?’
Miss Sturgeon said there would have been ‘an email or a note’ setting out that the minister was content to award the contract.
She said the Auditor General has suggested that ‘it has not been withheld, it was in his judgment not prepared’.
The First Minister added that the October 2015 document, sent a day after risk concerns were raised by CMAL, says that ministers had ‘seen and understood the risk paper and have noted and accepted the technical and commercial risks and have decided to proceed’.
The First Minister said: ‘The decision is recorded there, the bit that is missing is that link in the chain between these two things that simply say the minister is content. But the fact ministers are content is narrated in the document the next day.’
But Mr Ross replied: ‘Every time the going gets tough, we hear she can’t recall, she doesn’t know, she’s not sure.
‘We are supposed to believe a quarter-of-a-billion pound decision was either never written down, has vanished or has been illegally destroyed. The First Minister has botched this and covered up mistakes.’
Concerns were also raised yesterday about ‘gagging orders’ on senior Ferguson managers.
The Mail recently revealed that several former bosses at the yard were unable to speak to Audit Scotland as it would breach the terms of their non-disclosure agreements (NDAs).
Audit Scotland confirmed that one ex-boss was keen to pass on evidence but it was unable to persuade ministers to relax the terms of the NDA to allow this.
Auditor General Stephen Boyle told MSPs on the public audit committee that he would consider any additional evidence if the Government relaxed the NDA. He said: ‘We would clearly look to exercise our opportunity to speak to the person, if that was an opportunity.’
Asked if she would waive NDAs to ‘end this secrecy’, Miss Sturgeon said: ‘‘Nobody in the employment of Ferguson will be prevented in any way, shape or form from speaking to Audit Scotland, and speaking in full to Audit Scotland.’
The Scottish Government said: ‘Nobody in the employment of Ferguson’s shipyard will be prevented in any way, shape or form from speaking to Audit Scotland.’