Ferry questions

THE EDITOR: I now refer to the Prime Minister’s very quick, terse “announcement” that his government had successfully acquired a “new” inter-island ferry and that his government had bought the boat.

Contradicting NIPDEC’s reported press assertion of non-involvement in the process, Dr Rowley has once again pointed to that body’s key role. I wait to see whether the local media would make anything of the way this ferry was acquired.

The fact is that the “predicament” in which the nation found itself regarding the prolonged non-servicing of the inter-island transportation route could well have been deliberately contrived.

And Rowley openly accepted responsibility for the vacuum created. Was a “false flag” scenario engineered to “justify” his hand-picking of four insider colleagues?

Did he not threaten legal action when a similar, though much more transparent course of action was undertaken?

What did the ferry cost the country?

Who is “the broker” to whom he referred?

Has he explained why six preceding tenders by the PATT failed?

I would very much like to know how these four neophytes without a credible track record in this area, succeeded where the PATT repeatedly failed. Does the Government’s choice of acting outside the law set a precedent for procurement?

Is this country a PNM fiefdom?

Taxpayers deserve a detailed explanation and not a quick announcement that is rife with inconsistencies.

Steve Smith via e-mail