PM: Ferry reports 'traumatising' TT

The media have again come in for censure by the Prime Minister, this time over reports on the new ferry for Tobago, the Jean de La Valette.

The issue of the new ferry to replace the TT Express was a hot topic in the Senate on Tuesday, with UNC Senator Wade Mark questioning the procurement process. Mark alleged the ferry was defective and that a director in the company that owned it faced criminal charges in Malta.

Asked about the controversy surrounding the ferry, Dr Keith Rowley, who was touring Greenvale, La Horquetta, which suffered massive flooding last year, said he was not about controversy, but about getting the work done.

"What I am disappointed in, I must say to you, the media, you cannot just report every piece of mischief that somebody comes up with and traumatise the country with it without being able to say that the information is in your files, in your database, in your archives, that took the line of what mischief-makers are trying to say."

Rowley said he was "quite astounded" to see that the statement from the Works Ministry that a ferry was due here in May was being put across as some surprise to the country, with certain mischief-makers saying, "I was not consulted."

"What is going on? Why are we traumatising the country? If you had gone back to your files you would have seen on numerous occasions I've said to this country what the situation was with the Express: why we were not sending the Express for repairs; what we are going to, having not repaired the Express; how are we going to replace it. You would have seen many government spokespersons, the minister...we've gone out to tender asking for best bids, you would have seen us saying that we got responses and evaluations are taking place."

Rowley said, at the end of the evaluation, when it was announced that Cabinet had approved the leasing of a vessel, "All hell breaks loose."

He said certain people were making statements without a show of evidence and trying imply there was wrongdoing within the Government.

"All I can say to the UNC – especially Mrs Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Wade Mark – if this country has any problem with corruption, procurement and other disadvantages, the last two people who anybody in this country want to be speaking on their behalf is Kamla Persad-Bissessar and Wade Mark. I will say no more on that."

Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan, who was on the tour with the PM, said one newspaper (not Newsday) reported that his ministry did not advertise that it was trying to procure a vessel.

"If you go back to your newspaper you will see that we advertised for a vessel. What I am surprised about is you will print something and you will not check your archives to see your comment is wrong.

"We advertised for a vessel. This advertisement came out on so and so date with a date that it was going to close.

"So to come and print that no advertisement went out – I had to go back to Nidco and say, 'Send me a copy of that advertisement and send me the newspaper it appeared in.'

"What I found strange was that it was the said newspaper that claimed there was no advertisement.

"You have to do your job, we have to do our job. But sometimes when we put something out there we have to check it."