The former Chairman of the Port Authority, Christine Sahadeo, is reported to have commissioned an evaluation of the suitability of the Superfast Galicia without the knowledge of the Board.
A report compiled by Captain Alfred McMillan of Magellan Maritime Services Ltd identified six short-comings of the vessel and recommended that it be replaced.
According to documents obtained by the T&T Guardian, McMillan was asked by former chairman of the Port Authority to give his views “on the MV Galicia used by the Port Authority of Trinidad and Tobago (PATT) for cargo handling between Trinidad and Tobago.”
In his report dated March 29, 2016, McMillan identified six shortcomings and recommended that a more suitable vessel be found.
McMillan said the Galicia “is too large for trade purposes and a new berth has to be built to accommodate her.”
He also expressed concern that while the vessel “has a number of decks, however, an entire deck is unusable.” The deck, he said, was converted for another type of cargo and could not be used “for carriage of vehicles. This is a current cost and reduces the capacity of the vessel.”
McMillan felt that “fuel costs for such a vessel are considerable when set against the volume of cargo it is currently suited to carry.”
He noted in his report that the “cost of the fuel is borne by the government and is of academic interest to the owners,” of the vessel.
He was also concerned that the “daily charter rate for such a large vessel is exorbitant when a vessel of this size is not fully utilised.”
According to McMillan, “the cargo carried by the Warrior Spirit and the MV Galicia, is the carrying capacity of the Warrior Spirit alone which is also under-utilised.”
In addition, he said, the “Superfast Galicia incurs many added costs because of the berthing configuration which is unsuitable.” He noted that “there has been a barge hired to use as the landing facility for the stern ramp every time we have to use the Galicia.” The barge, he said, “comes at an additional daily cost of US$1,100.”
The operational cost of the vessel, he said, was further pushed up by added insurance and he recommended that the Port “discontinue the extravagance of chartering the vessel.”
Based on the concerns raised in the report, McMillan said he been asked to secure a vessel “within a two to three week period.”
In that report submitted in April, McMillan identified six vessels to replace the Galicia: the MV Straitsman which was at the time trading in New Zealand, the MV Hammer Rodde, trading in Denmark, the MV Levante, which was on Charter up to December 2016 in the Mediterranean, the MV Daltivia which he said “could be made available for sale if the owners can find a replacement, the MV Clipper Ranger, which is a freight only vessel and which the owners “want to sell,” providing they agree to the “conditions of sale, and the MV Ocean Queen, which was described as a car-truck carrier and which was “immediately available for sale.”
Of the six , McMillan recommended the MV Hammer Rodde, which he said “was most likely to meet the requirements of those instructing me.”
The T&T Guardian tried to contact both McMillan and Sahadeo without success.
Asked why the board did not act on McMillan’s report, former member of the Board of the Port Authority, Ferdie Ferreira said “all of this happened without the input of the Board. I never saw these documents because they never came to the board.”
Ferreira said as far as he knew Magellan was retained to “manage the Inter-Island Ferry service.”
He described McMillan as “a master mariner who is well qualified.” But he said requesting a report on the Galicia and making recommendations for a replacement vessel “did not come from the Board. We never knew about that.”
He recalled that when Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan invited the Board to a meeting, “the former Chairman invited McMillan, to sit in. The Minister asked who he was. He was asked to leave the meeting because it was a meeting with the Board.”
Ferreira said “we were not aware that someone else was doing something without our knowledge,” and the Board recommended an 18-month contract for the Galicia which would have ended in October this year.”
He said had that contract been signed “that would have given us the time we needed to examine all options and we would not be in the situation we are in today.”
The recommendation to extend the contract for 18 months, he said, was taken to Cabinet by the then Minister Fitzgerald Hinds but it was not approved and no one has said why. Maybe it was rejected on the basis of the McMillan report,” he speculated.
Efforts to contact Hinds proved futile.
