Trinidad cancels boat deal with BAE

Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar on Wednesday confirmed that her four-month-old People's Partnership government had cancelled a multimillion-dollar contract with a British-based company for three offshore patrol vessels for use by the Trinidad and Tobago Coast Guard.

The £150-million (US$237.1 million) contract had been signed between the former Patrick Manning government and BAE Systems at Portsmouth Naval Base, United Kingdom.

Both National Security Minister Brigadier John Sandy and his junior minister Subhas Panday were quoted by the local media as saying they were unaware that the contract had been scrapped.

But Persad-Bissessar subsequently confirmed media reports that the deal, which the Manning government had considered critical to the war on guns and drugrunning, had been scrapped and that the British company may need to pay compensation to Trinidad and Tobago.

"I am advised that BAE is in breach of the contract. They are in breach because of two reasons ... a delay, which is the most substantial cause we have for termination of the contract; but they are also in breach because they have not been able to supply the vessels that they have been contracted for," she told reporters.

She said Trinidad would have had to pay TT$1.4 billion for the vessels, while declaring doubt that the vessels would help attack the country's crime problem.

"The country is not at war," she said, adding that the conflict was to be found "up and down in our streets and in the towns and within Trinidad and Tobago."

The OPVs, said Persad-Bissessar, are more likely to hinder than aid the drug fight.

"They are slow and visible from way off - you could see them from far," she said. "What may be more useful are smaller, faster cutters that could hide in inlets and then come out."

The decision to cancel the contracts were first made public by BAE Systems in a statement issued to the London stock exchange last week.

According to the company's website, the 90-metre vessels, with a maximum speed of 25.8 knots, could remain at sea for 35 days and are equipped for a range of tasks, from tackling drug smuggling to helping with disaster relief in the region.

Under the 2007 agreement signed in Port-of-Spain, BAE Systems would have provided training and five years in-service support to the coast guard.

- CMC