TYCOON Jim McColl has accused Nicola Sturgeon of “misrepresenting the facts” in her evidence to the Holyrood probe of the botched ferry scandal. 

On Friday, the First Minister told MSPs on the Public Audit Committee that Ferguson Marine and its managers had yet to take their share of the blame in the process which has seen the two vessels run millions over budget and years late.

Ms Sturgeon said Mr McColl’s investment group, Clyde Blowers Capital (CBC) had possibly breached conditions around a £30m loan to the company.

The loan, one of two worth a total of £45m, was agreed to help cover substantial cost overruns on the project.

The agreement was that in return for the £30m loan, CBC would need to invest £3m of new equity into Ferguson Marine and another £5.5m for capital projects. 

That second amount was never invested.

The First Minister told the committee that the “ink was not even dry on the agreement and Clyde Blowers was not fulfilling the requirement on it as part of the agreement” to “invest its own equity as well as drawing down the Scottish Government loan”.

Mr McColl told the Sunday Times: “When the government provided a loan of £30m to the yard in 2018, it insisted that we put money in as well. Clyde Blowers committed £3m as a bridging loan. 

“We made it very clear we were not going to put in equity to subsidise a government contract. We didn’t breach any agreement and it’s a total misrepresentation by the first minister to suggest we did.”

He said: “We were not going to invest £5m without a government commitment to establish a process to resolve the issue of the project’s additional costs.”

Mr McColl added: “I have never said we didn’t have some responsibility for what happened, but the main issue was always the lack of a detailed design specification for the vessels when the contract was awarded to us.”

He added: “When the Scottish government nationalised the yard, the contract was £50m over budget. They’ve been in charge of the yard and constructing the vessels for more than three years and the cost is now more than £200m over budget, and the ferries remain unfinished.

“People need to just look at the evidence.”

The businessman said the cost of the project - which was due to come in at around £97m - could soon exceed £340m.

Responding to Mr McColl’s claim, a Scottish Government spokesperson said: “The initial £30m loan agreement required FMEL/CBC to invest £3m of new equity into FMEL and a further £5.5m to fund capital projects. 

“This is set out in writing in the various agreements reached with the company. As highlighted in the auditor general’s report, CBC did not invest the second tranche and asked to alter the terms of the first £3m from equity to debt.”