Now even Derek Mackay admits ferries ‘a scandal’
... and he awarded the contract!
DISGRACED former SNP transport minister Derek Mackay has admitted the ferry fiasco is a ‘scandalous state of affairs’.
Mr Mackay, who awarded the £97million contract in 2015 to Ferguson Marine, has acknowledged it enabled a ‘transfer of risk’ from the shipbuilder to the taxpayer.
But he insisted he was not to blame and ‘any wrongdoing or any impropriety that’s happened at the hands of a government agency’ would need to be answered by bosses there.
A lack of protections in the deal to build two ferries has seen the cost soar to an estimated £338million, with the completion of the vessels five years past the original deadline.
Mr Mackay has been accused of overruling officials’ warnings about the lack of a buyer’s refund guarantee when the contract was awarded to independence-supporting businessman Jim McColl.
In an interview with STV last night, he claimed the Scottish Government’s own procurement agency has questions to answer about the potentially illegal award of the contract.
Mr Mackay, who quit as a minister after allegations he was pestering a teenage boy, insisted he acted ‘lawfully’ when agreeing the deal with the Port Glasgow yard and ‘acted with the best of intentions’.
He said the soaring costs were ‘regrettable’ and he had been convinced the project could be delivered on budget.
With neither ferry complete, he begrudgingly admitted: ‘It’s a scandalous state of affairs.’
He told STV: ‘I welcomed the award of the contract because it was good for Inverclyde, it was good for shipbuilding, it was good for the workers and we thought it would be good for the CalMac fleet.
‘Ministers acted lawfully at the time and I certainly acted lawfully at the time.’
He added: ‘If there’s any wrongdoing or any impropriety that’s happened at the hands of a government agency, then they will have to answer for that.’
In evidence to a Holyrood probe into the deal last year, SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon said she wished the contract had not been awarded without protections for taxpayer cash.
Mr Mackay suggested ministers should not even have been allowed to consider awarding a contract without the industrystandard protections.
He said: ‘It arguably shouldn’t have been presented to ministers, it shouldn’t have been taken forward if it was a mandatory requirement.’ Tory transport spokesman Graham Simpson said: ‘The bottom line is this was a catastrophic decision by SNP politicians and not one has taken responsibility for the years of delays and enormous costs it has led to.’
He added: ‘If we’re ever to get to the bottom of arguably the greatest scandal in Holyrood’s history there must be a full public inquiry as soon as possible and heads must roll.’