With assistance from other agencies, the National Infrastructure Development Company Limited (Nidco) managed — just barely, from some accounts — to keep the water taxi Carnival Runner from sinking on Monday.
Officials of that state agency now need to fully account to taxpayers about the state of disrepair in which the vessel was left, tied up at a jetty in San Fernando for the past six years. They need to explain why the repair bill for the 11-year-old high-speed catamaran is approximately $30 million.
A proper explanation is warranted because this looks very much like another case of mismanagement and neglect of state property and this country has had too much of that over the years.
It is worrying that were it not for the fact that the vessel started sinking early Monday morning and images were shared widely on social media, the public would not have been made aware of the situation with this water taxi.
It turns out that the vessel, one of four built in Australia in 2009 by Austal for a total of $430 million and put into service in October 2010, has been out of service since August 2015. Nidco described it as in “laid up status,” which nicely covers up the reality of the Carnival Runner being left to deteriorate to the extent that it started taking on water.
The other vessels in the water taxi service, the Trini Flash, Calypso Sprinter and Paria Bullet, continue to operate on the Port-of-Spain to San Fernando route, so the situation managed to be kept out of scrutiny until now.
But now that it is out in the open, this water taxi situation is a disturbing reminder of the fiasco with the broken seabridge in 2018 that resulted in all the public frustration and delays caused by passenger ferries being in dry dock and resulting unreliable cargo ferry service.
Short-term, costly solutions included expenditure of $500,000 to fly ferry passengers between the two islands on Caribbean Airlines.
The more permanent fix, procurement of two passenger fast ferries from the Australian shipbuilders INCAT Australia Pty Limited (INCAT) and Austal Limited (Austal) for vessels delivered in just the past few months, came with price tags of US$73,550,000 and US$72,977,000 respectively.
The fervent hope is that these recent acquisitions will not fall victim to the culture or poor or no maintenance that seems endemic in our public service. Sadly, that abysmal track record is not limited to state-owned maritime assets.
President’s House, the Red House and some of the stunning edifices known collectively as the Magnificent Seven were left to crumble into advanced states of dilapidation and left that way for years before finally being restored at great cost to taxpayers.
Just in case anyone is tempted to politicize this issue, bear in mind that the parties currently in government and opposition equally share blame for decades of neglect and mismanagement of valuable state assets.
Where maintenance is concerned, this nation is in urgent need of a radical cultural shift.
And it starts with demanding full transparency and accountability from the authorities. Let’s hear the full story of what went wrong with the Carnival Runner.