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**Chris** · 17-03-2023, 15:18

There are all sorts of things wrong with the procurement assumptions at CMAL, the state body that owns Scotland’s entire maritime transport infrastructure. On top of all of them, in this specific instance, was the SNP’s political imperative to prevent the last commercial shipbuilder on the Clyde from going bust and then chucking it an eye-catching order for two great big Hebridean ferries that would look great on the front of the newspapers with Alex and Nicola waving from the bridge.

Ferguson Marine had never built a ferry this big, and it was now asked to build two of them simultaneously, and also to incorporate novel dual fuel technology that was entirely beyond its experience or expertise. Add to that CMAL’s slapdash, fluid and lackadaisical approach to design and specification and it was a disaster in the making. The reason for the latest six-month delay announced this week is that, incredibly, so many years down the line, they are *still* coming to build bits of these things and finding that the bits haven’t even been properly designed and specced.

CMAL is State owned and Scottish ministers are its ‘shareholders’. Ferguson Marine is likewise State owned.

The shytte-show that is CMAL is squarely the responsibility of the SNP who have been in government for 16 years. And the utter farce that is Ferguson Marine is not something the SNP can claim to have inherited. It is entirely of their own invention.

17-03-2023, 15:18	#4276
Chris Trollsplatter Cable Forum Team Join Date: Jun 2003 Location: North of Watford Services: Humane elimination of all common Internet pests Posts: 36,925	Re: Will Scotland Leave the UK? There are all sorts of things wrong with the procurement assumptions at CMAL, the state body that owns Scotland’s entire maritime transport infrastructure. On top of all of them, in this specific instance, was the SNP’s political imperative to prevent the last commercial shipbuilder on the Clyde from going bust and then chucking it an eye-catching order for two great big Hebridean ferries that would look great on the front of the newspapers with Alex and Nicola waving from the bridge. Ferguson Marine had never built a ferry this big, and it was now asked to build two of them simultaneously, and also to incorporate novel dual fuel technology that was entirely beyond its experience or expertise. Add to that CMAL’s slapdash, fluid and lackadaisical approach to design and specification and it was a disaster in the making. The reason for the latest six-month delay announced this week is that, incredibly, so many years down the line, they are still coming to build bits of these things and finding that the bits haven’t even been properly designed and specced. CMAL is State owned and Scottish ministers are its ‘shareholders’. Ferguson Marine is likewise State owned. The shytte-show that is CMAL is squarely the responsibility of the SNP who have been in government for 16 years. And the utter farce that is Ferguson Marine is not something the SNP can claim to have inherited. It is entirely of their own invention.