The Sea­men and Wa­ter­front Work­ers Trade Union (SWW­TU) is con­cerned about the “shroud of se­cre­cy” sur­round­ing the new pas­sen­ger fer­ry ac­quired for the seabridge at a cost of US$17.4 mil­lion.

“I have a prob­lem with the shroud of se­cre­cy. It is tax­pay­ers mon­ey and I am there­fore say­ing that all in­for­ma­tion rel­a­tive to the process should be forth­com­ing to the gen­er­al pub­lic,” SWW­TU pres­i­dent Michael An­nisette told the T&T Guardian yes­ter­day.

For­mer trans­port min­is­ter Stephen Cadiz has al­so been ex­pressed con­cern and claimed the ac­qui­si­tion of the ves­sel “is not with­in the pub­lic pro­cure­ment process.”

“The Min­is­ter of Fi­nance has made the state­ment the boat has gone for sea tri­als and was in­spect­ed and yet still Nid­co has not yet is­sued a con­tract. Who au­tho­rised the ex­pense to go through sea tri­al? How will they be paid? The in­spec­tors don’t do it for free and there is no con­tract with Nid­co.”

There are re­ports that the pa­per­work for the ves­sel was sent to Nid­co on­ly last week. That agency’s chair­man Her­bert George, who told the T&T Guardian last week that Nid­co is not part of the process, could not be reached for com­ment yes­ter­day.

Cadiz is al­so ques­tion­ing the si­lence of Port Au­thor­i­ty of T&T (PATT) chair­man Al­i­son Lewis.

“As a for­mer per­ma­nent sec­re­tary in the Min­istry of Fi­nance she knows very well how pub­lic pro­cure­ment is sup­posed to op­er­ate, but yet she says noth­ing,” he said.

Calls to Lewis’ mo­bile phone went unan­swered on Mon­day and yes­ter­day.

Cadiz wants Fi­nance Min­is­ter Colm Im­bert to ex­plain how the US$17.4 mil­lion price for the fer­ry was re­alised.

He asked: “Why is the ship­yard giv­ing you the brand new ves­sel at US$17.4M and not at the full mar­ket price? Is there some­thing wrong with the ves­sel?”

Ac­cord­ing to the for­mer min­is­ter, a brand new ves­sel sim­i­lar to the T&T Ex­press would cost US$120 mil­lion.

Im­bert told Par­lia­ment the ves­sel had been com­plet­ed but nev­er put in­to ser­vice. (RS)