Richard Lord

Gov­ern­ment has fi­nal­ly col­lect­ed a $1.4 bil­lion cheque from British Aero­space En­gi­neer­ing (BAE) Sys­tems for its vic­to­ry at an ar­bi­tra­tion hear­ing over the breach of con­tract to sup­ply three off-shore pa­trol ves­sels (OPVs) to the Min­istry of Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty.How­ev­er, the mon­ey will still go to­wards the fight against crime, as it will be hand­ed over to new Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter Gary Grif­fith for one of his in­tend­ed pro­grammes.

This was re­vealed by At­tor­ney Gen­er­al Anand Ram­lo­gan dur­ing his con­tri­bu­tion to yes­ter­day's Sen­ate de­bate on the 2013-2014 na­tion­al bud­get."We have re­ceived the cheque from BAE and the Gov­ern­ment has put that mon­ey to good use," he said to loud desk-thump­ing in the cham­ber.Ram­lo­gan said the mon­ey would be used by Grif­fith for a plan to en­sure the coun­try's mar­itime bound­aries were se­cured.

Last week, Grif­fith an­nounced he was look­ing at a "mar­itime se­cu­ri­ty lock­down" ini­tia­tive as one of his crime-fight­ing tools. He said he would need to pur­chase a launch pa­trol ves­sel and be­tween four and six ves­sels for the plan.With these small­er and faster ves­sels, Grif­fith said he would be able to im­ple­ment 24-hour pa­trols in or­der to lock down the coun­try's shores from ex­ter­nal crim­i­nal el­e­ments.

Grif­fith not­ed that the ves­sels would op­er­ate in tan­dem with the ex­ist­ing radar sys­tem and the he­li­copters so that at any time there was an alert about any il­le­gal en­try of any ves­sel, the na­tion­al se­cu­ri­ty forces could re­spond.Yes­ter­day, how­ev­er, Ram­lo­gan said the mon­ey would not be ad­di­tion­al to the $6.4 bil­lion al­lo­ca­tion pro­vid­ed to the Se­cu­ri­ty Min­istry in the bud­get.

The pay­ment comes fol­low­ing an ar­bi­tra­tion mat­ter that had been set­tled with UK-based BAE since last No­vem­ber.Ram­lo­gan ad­mit­ted that the mem­bers of the PP Gov­ern­ment, when in Op­po­si­tion, had crit­i­cised the OPV agree­ment.

How­ev­er, he said, it was a mis­rep­re­sen­ta­tion that the Gov­ern­ment had can­celled the OPV con­tract, which was en­tered in­to the pre­vi­ous PNM ad­min­is­tra­tion, in a willy nil­ly man­ner. The AG said all the ex­perts said that three OPVs were too many and the mon­ey could be put to bet­ter use, adding their ob­jec­tion was based on sol­id and tech­ni­cal ad­vice.On as­sum­ing of­fice, the Gov­ern­ment, Ram­lo­gan said, was still com­mit­ted to ho­n­our­ing the agree­ment and was mak­ing the re­quired pay­ments for the three OPVs.

"The rea­son that mat­ter land­ed up in ar­bi­tra­tion had noth­ing to do with the Gov­ern­ment pulling the plug willy-nil­ly or else we would not have been paid $1.4 bil­lion by BAE," he told leg­is­la­tors."The rea­son that was done is be­cause there was a de­fect in the fir­ing ca­pa­bil­i­ty of the off­shore pa­trol ves­sels," he said.He said the de­fect was in the first ves­sel con­struct­ed and when the sec­ond was con­struct­ed the de­fect in the first was not re­solved.

He said he vis­it­ed the com­pa­ny and sought an­swers about the de­fec­tive ves­sel. The com­pa­ny, he said, could not give any guar­an­tee and en­cour­aged the Gov­ern­ment to ac­cept the ves­sels at a re­duced price. He said if the ves­sels did not have the spe­cif­ic ca­pa­bil­i­ty there was no point in hav­ing the OPVs.The min­is­ter said the ter­mi­na­tion of the con­tract "was jus­ti­fied and in the in­ter­est of T&T and that is why we didn't have to pay any mon­ey. We got $1.4 bil­lion."

The con­tract was en­tered in­to with BAE Sys­tems in April 2007 for the ac­qui­si­tion of three OPVs at a cost of TT$1.5 bil­lion.The PP Gov­ern­ment can­celled the con­tract by rea­son of BAE de­fault on Sep­tem­ber 17, 2010. Among the rea­sons giv­en for the can­cel­la­tion were the de­lays in the de­liv­ery of the ves­sels and tech­ni­cal de­fi­cien­cies.

In an­nounc­ing the can­cel­la­tion of the con­tract in 2010, Prime Min­is­ter Kam­la Per­sad-Bisses­sar had an­nounced that with a con­tract of this size and im­por­tance, and with ma­jor de­lays then an­nounced in BAE's de­liv­ery oblig­a­tions and the is­sues that per­sist­ed, it was in­cum­bent that they re-eval­u­at­ed the con­tract.

The BAE, the PM had not­ed then, made pro­pos­als that the Gov­ern­ment take de­liv­ery of the de­fec­tive ves­sels de­spite the fact that the com­bat sys­tem de­fects would prej­u­dice the op­er­a­tional ca­pa­bil­i­ties of the ves­sels. She added that though the Gov­ern­ment be­lieved in can­celling the con­tract, it was still ex­er­cis­ing con­trac­tu­al rights ex­press­ly ne­go­ti­at­ed and agreed with BAE.