Design changes done in Romania
SCOTLAND’S ongoing ferry fiasco continues with the revelation that work to carry out design changes is being conducted in Romania.
It comes after the Scottish Government offered a £2.12 million contract, without going to competitive tender, to an offshore company to complete design changes for one long-delayed vessel. The taxpayerfunded award was made to Isle of Man-based International Contract
Engineering Ltd. Now it has emerged ICE’S work centres around specialists at a Romania base.
WORK to carry out design changes to resolve the fiasco over the delivery of two new lifeline Scottish ferries is being done in Romania with the blessing of ministers, it has been confirmed.
It comes after the Scottish Government offered a £2.12 million contract – without going to competitive tender – to an offshore company to complete design changes for one longdelayed vessel due to service Scotland’s busiest ferry crossing.
The taxpayer-funded award was made in April to Isle of Man-based International Contract Engineering Ltd (ICE) to supply engineering servies for the stalled construction of MV Glenn Sannox to “correct and complete” the design.
Ministers said last week that it was in the public interest to carry out a state takeover of Ferguson Marine Engineering Ltd (FMEL), owners of the last civilian shipyard on the Clyde to save jobs and protect the local economy.
Now it has emerged ICE’S work on the project centres around 80 specialists at a base in Romania.
The move has been confirmed in an update report on the progress of the two ferries being built by state-owned Ferguson Marine.
It says that ICE is “Uk-owned” but has an operating base in Romania, employing more than 300 graduate naval architects and marine engineers which has “a track record of delivering complex vessel designs to shipyards across the world”.
It says: “Currently, ICE have over 80 specialists working on the ferry project, a level that could never have been achieved by Ferguson or its previous sub-contract design partner.” FMEL went into administration in August last year following a dispute with Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd – the taxpayer-funded company which buys and leases publicly owned Calmac’s ships on behalf of the Scottish Government – over the construction of two ferries under a £97m fixed-price contract.
The Scottish Government took Ferguson Marine into public ownership at the end of last year after the Port Glasgow yard fell into administration, while the cost of delivering the ferries soared from £97m to more than
£200m.
The former management of FMEL believes that the cost has now soared to more than £300m.
The EU has previously confirmed it was not notified of the state takeover or the issuing of two commercial loans to
ICE have over 80 specialists working on the ferry project
FMEL in Port Glasgow totalling £45m before the yard fell into insolvency.
Ferguson shipyard won the £97m contract to build two new ferries for Arran and the Hebrides in 2015.
Last Tuesday, the Scottish Government came under fire for failing to explain how it was that it created a pathway to the controversial state takeover of Ferguson Marine while issuing a £30m loan which it said was “to further diversify their business”, but knowing that it was actually addressing the danger of its financial collapse.
The Herald on Sunday revealed yesterday that Scottish Governmentcontrolled CMAL agreed to give up nearly £25m in “default” payments to complete the construction of the two lifeline ferries after the collapse of the shipbuilders, paving the way for its controversial nationalisation.