There are times when you have to wonder if provincial cabinet ministers actually realise how moronic they sound to everyone else.
David Brazil is the transportation minister. By his own admission, a company in Romania could build ferries for the ferry system in Newfoundland and Labrador for a better price than anyone else.
That better price included – by his own claim – if the provincial government had to pay a multi-million penalty on the project under federal tariff law.
The Conservatives rode to power in 2003 by accusing the Liberals of not being able to manage anything. Ferries played a big part of their narrative of supposed incompetence.
Just to prove that Karma is Payback’s other name, the Conservatives have proven themselves to be considerably worse at managing the province’s ferry system than the Liberals ever were in the Connies worst lies.
The Conservatives currently running the place have proven themselves to be worse than previous administrations – Liberal or Progressive Conservative - at managing a great many things, as it turned out, but that’s another story. Let’s stick with the ferries.
The provincial government announced plans to build two new ferries on Wednesday. The first one will cost $51 million.
The new ferry will replace the Captain Earl W. Winsor, a vessel that’s been in service for more than 40 years. Currently it is on the Fogo Island-Change Islands run.
There are a few interesting things about this particular ship and the announcement.
With a tender call to build six more ferries,the provincial government is still not finished sorting out problems with its last ferry contract.
Earlier this year, Kiewit Marystown delivered two ferries originally contracted in 2008 at a cost of $50.5 million. They were supposed to be delivered in 2009 and 2010. The final delivery price was $27.5 million each.
The issue of cost-over-runs on the contract cropped up last week in an interview human resources minister Darin King gave to CBC’s David Cochrane. King also said the provincial government has been trying to sort out construction of a third ferry at Kiewit but the ideas was hung up over cost escalations.
According to the 2008 news release, the provincial government was supposed to purchase the engine for a third ferry in 2008 at a cost of $2.0 million. They were also supposed to start design work on a fourth, larger ferry.
The ferry project dates back to 2005. When the provincial government announced the Kiewit deal a quarter of the work was supposed to go to a yard in Clarenville. Before work got underway, the Clarenville shipyard dropped out of the deal.
If the figures in provincial government news releases are accurate, the two ferries came in only 10% over budget. That’s actually low compared to cost over-runs on other provincial government tenders.
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A company from the Irving Group has won a government contract to design a ferry for the Newfoundland and Labrador ferry system.
According to a provincial government news release, Fleetway Inc. came out on top in an expressions of interest process begun this past May.
The release is unusually brief, does not provide any details on the company and erroneously describes it as a Newfoundland and Labrador company.
The original news release announcing the process contained much the same information as the announcement that Fleetway got the job.
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