A SCOTTISH Government-controlled company which gave a lifeline ferries contract to Turkey has spent hundreds of pounds more on monthly overseas travel during the pandemic than before Covid hit, it can be revealed.

Caledonian Maritime Assets Ltd (CMAL), the taxpayer-funded firm which owns and procures ferries, has racked up £170,000 in foreign travel over the last seven years.

Official figures reveal that CMAL was spending nearly £300 a month more per month on overseas travel during the pandemic than in the five years before the virus hit.

It comes as questions continue to be raised about the legality of giving Turkish shipyard Cemre Marin Endustri the £105m ferry order.

There is continuing concern that Scottish Government-controlled CMAL has failed to outline what the community benefits are for giving the work to Turkey - having rejected a bid for the project from state-controlled Ferguson Marine.

The ground-breaking eProcurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 when it was brought was seen by many as a welcome move away from contracts awarded only on the basis of the lowest price towards those which offer the best long-term outcomes for Scotland’s communities and the environment.

Public contracts valued at £4m or above have specific requirements in relation to community benefits in the authority area that a contract is issued.

These should include training and recruitment, the availability of sub-contracting and supplier opportunities, and that it is intended to improve the economic, social or environmental well-being of the area.

If no community benefits are sought in a contract, a statement must be published on justifying the decision.

When CMAL announced the Turkish shipyard firm as the preferred bidder no benefits to any Scottish community were listed.

CMAL says that as the contract has not been officially awarded yet, it cannot provide any detail about the bid.

Now it has emerged that CMAL has amassed £169,848.40 in overseas travel over the last five years.

It was spending an average of £2836.06 a month over six months during the Covid pandemic in 2020 and 2021 having previously forked out £2547.22 a month in the five years before the virus restrictons.

Alba Party deputy Kenny MacAskill criticised the spend.

“CMAL’s remit doesn’t extend beyond the Minch but they’ve run up almost £170,000 in overseas travel since 2015 and struggle to sail the seas they’re supposed to serve,” he said. “This even includes periods when foreign travel was precluded through lockdown.

“It’s bad enough that CMAL are giving contracts for ships that should be built in Scotland. But it’s adds salt to the wound that whilst the ships they’ve provided for remote communities lie idle, berthed or being repaired, they’re jetting around the globe.”

Ministers have previously been warned that they may have acted unlawfully by failing to give nationalised shipbuilder Ferguson Marine a look in for a £100m contract to create two new lifeline ferries to serve Islay.

The Turkish yard won in front of four overseas companies to bid for the contract to build the two vessels - and excluded the Inverclyde shipbuilder.

Finance secretary Kate Forbes has stated that in line with the Procurement Reform (Scotand) Act 2014, bidders for the Islay procurement process were required to detail the community benefits they are able to offer within their response to the invitation to tender.

Submissions from the four yards were evaluated including the responses to the community benefits section included within the original contract notice.

Ferguson Marine which runs the last remaining shipyard on the lower Clyde was nationalised after it financially collapsed in August 2019, amid soaring costs and delays to the construction of two lifeline island ferries.

It came five years after tycoon Jim McColl first rescued the yard when it went bust.
The delivery of new island ferries MV Glen Sannox and Hull 802, which were due online in the first half of 2018, was found to be between four and five years late, with costs doubling to over £200m.

Earlier this year it emerged that the completion of the long-overdue ferries had been delayed again. The Islay route is already one of the busiest services for freight on the Clyde and Hebrides network, and CMAL says that the incoming ferries will support the island’s vital economic activity.

The four shortlisted shipyards were to submit their technical and commercial proposals for the design and construction of the two vessels.

The successful initial bids were from Damen Shipyard in Romania, Remontowa Shipbuilding in Poland, and Turkish shipyards Sefine Denizcilik Tersanecilik Turizm, and Cemre Marin Endustri.

It was confirmed Ferguson Marine embarked in a bid for the contract through the initial Pre-Qualification Questionnaire process but failed to make the shortlist.

A CMAL spokesman said that Mr MacAskill’s comment demonstrated a “profound lack of understanding of CMAL’s role and the work we do to support Scotland’s ferry infrastructure – including the Northern Isles, beyond the Minch”.

The spokesman added: “We have spent considerable time in past years searching the global second hand market for ferries to bring resilience to the fleet. It is vital that our vessels team inspect these ferries first hand to assess their suitability for the network. We also visit shipyards during the evaluation stage of the new vessel procurement process to correlate the bid response from each yard with their reality, and attend factory acceptance tests for machinery. In terms of travel during lockdown, ferries are a lifeline service and many of our team were given critical worker status during the pandemic to maintain infrastructure.”