Rose­marie Sant

Bridge­mans Ser­vices Group vice-pres­i­dent An­drew Purdey is hop­ing his com­pa­ny will be treat­ed fair­ly at ten­der eval­u­a­tion process for the se­lec­tion of a new pas­sen­ger ves­sel for the sea bridge.

The com­pa­ny’s ten­der of the con­tro­ver­sial Ocean Flower 2 was among eleven oth­ers re­ceived by the Port Au­thor­i­ty of T&T (PATT) last Mon­day.

Purdey told the T&T Guardian that de­spite all the neg­a­tives sur­round­ing their pre­vi­ous ten­der, the com­pa­ny is hop­ing for fair treat­ment “but we have no con­trol over how the Port looks at us.”

The Ocean Flower 2 was ini­tial­ly giv­en the con­tract to sup­ply the pas­sen­ger ser­vice on the sea bridge in late June. But the con­tract, val­ued at US$26,500 a day, was scrapped af­ter the ves­sel failed to meet three sep­a­rate dead­lines for ar­rival here. The ves­sel has since ar­rived here for dry dock­ing in Ch­aguara­mas.

Asked what next for Bridge­mans if the PATT eval­u­a­tion com­mit­tee does not se­lect the ves­sel, he said “no plans” in an emailed re­ply.

Purdey said Bridge­mans had spent “in the mil­lions” to re­pair the Ocean Flower 2 when it docked in Pana­ma, fol­low­ing the jour­ney from Ko­rea, af­ter de­vel­op­ing sig­nif­i­cant prob­lems. This led to the de­lay in its ar­rival to Trinidad and the sub­se­quent can­cel­la­tion of the con­tract.

Cur­rent­ly, he said the com­pa­ny is still “con­sid­er­ing our op­tions” with re­gard to ini­ti­at­ing le­gal ac­tion against the PATT. He re­fused com­ment on whether there were claus­es in the con­tract which may have com­pli­cat­ed the ac­tu­al can­cel­la­tion of the con­tract, say­ing it is a “le­gal mat­ter and I will not com­ment.”

The Ocean Flower 2 berthed in Ch­aguara­mas last Wednes­day, the same day the ten­ders closed for a pas­sen­ger fer­ry. In the pub­lic open­ing of the ten­ders, Bridge­mans was one of five com­pa­nies which sub­mit­ted ves­sels.

Purdey main­tained that the ten­der and the ar­rival of the ves­sel were not linked, in­sist­ing that al­though the PATT had can­celled the ini­tial con­tract, they agreed to bring the Ocean Flower 2 for a pre-planned dry dock for main­te­nance and in­stal­la­tion of T-Foils to im­prove the ship’s per­for­mance. Asked how soon the dry-dock­ing will be­gin, he said “in the next few days.”

Mar­itime of­fi­cials told the T&T Guardian there is noth­ing in law to pre­vent any ves­sel from dock­ing in T&T wa­ters as long as they meet the re­quire­ments and get prop­er clear­ance.

On Sep­tem­ber 8, Ken Ship­ping and Ma­rine Ser­vices Lim­it­ed’s Lester Ken­ny, the lo­cal a Ocean Flower 2 agent, wrote to the Im­mi­gra­tion Board­ing Sec­tion in­di­cat­ing the im­mi­nent ar­rival of the ves­sel for the pur­pose of dry dock­ing. The let­ter said the com­pa­ny’s board­ing rep­re­sen­ta­tive Shel­don Poon­sam­my “will be board­ing and en­ter­ing the ves­sel in­to Ch­aguara­mas” and re­quest­ed that the Im­mi­gra­tion Board­ing Sta­tion board and clear the ves­sel in­to Trinidad and To­ba­go for re­pairs.

On the same day the ves­sel berthed in Ch­aguara­mas, di­rec­tor of the Mar­itime Ser­vices at the Min­istry of Works and Trans­port Ronald Al­fred told the Joint Se­lect Com­mit­tee on Land and Phys­i­cal In­fra­struc­ture that any ves­sel which want­ed to come in­to lo­cal wa­ters was free to make an ap­pli­ca­tion “96-48 hours be­fore they will put their statu­to­ry doc­u­ments in to the Mar­itime Ser­vices” and they would ex­am­ine them to make sure they are “in date.” Al­fred said as far as he un­der­stood, the ves­sel was here for” le­git­i­mate busi­ness.”