I BELIEVE your report on a new proposals by Caledonian Maritime Assets (CMal ) will be treated with some scepticism amongst those communities dependent on a necessary and reliable ferry service in the West of Scotland and should also be a concern to the companies currently tendering to operate the routes Ferries quango in a bid to develop 'zero emissions' passenger vessel", The Herald.
June 30).
CMal, a publicly funded quango, has a woeful record of procurement and the inadequate replacement programme of its ageing and failing fleet and would now, in following this misjudged fantasy, appear to be prepared to further jeopardise the economy and lifestyles of the communities mentioned. Of course to CMal and to Transport Scotland there is no risk as, with public money they cannot lose.
Surprisingly there is no mention of any support from the Government-sponsored Expert Ferry Group (EFG), one of whose functions is to provide Scottish ministers with considered advice about key ferries related issues in Scotland. A former member of the EFG, Professor Kay (economist) quit his post last year. In a resignation letter, Professor Kay criticised the group for secrecy and closed-door meetings and said the interests of service-users and communities were "peripheral". CMal's enthusiasm to invest in unproven technology on a scale that is not yet tested, at a time when the present fleet is often not up to the job seems to support that view.
Alfred Baird (Professor of Maritime Business at Napier University) alluded to CMal's inadequacies when he said: "The ongoing ferry fleet and port procurement activities sponsored by the state make the Edinburgh tram debacle look like a very good deal indeed".
In a more recent comment Sir William Lithgow said: "The hallmark of the British administrative class is technological illiteracy, manifest currently in Scotland in the eulogising of ground-breaking hybrid boats, yet such boats were being built in Greenock a century ago. Before even counting the cost of unsound expenditure, turning private money into public money and then back again to private benefit is incredibly wasteful, given all the processing, bureaucracy and overheads involved. Turning opportunities into problems is a poor substitute for the old virtues of thrift and ingenuity."
Even more pointedly I understand that he also referred to underlying diseases in public sector transport provision which are amongst other things "lacking, by nature, the expertise in procurement and specification, a deficiency that can only lead to expensive disasters - and does".
I suggest that long-suffering ferry users and disadvantaged communities would rather take the sage advice offered above, by those far better qualified than I, to suggest the folly of CMal's proposal in this regard. Perhaps the Minister for Transport and the Islands and others may wish to do likewise.
Neil Arthur,
Broombrae, Kilpatrick, Isle of Arran.
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