Minister in the Office of the Prime Minister Stuart Young said yesterday more legal action will be taken against the local broker of the MV Super Fast Galicia which sailed out of T&T last year.
The local agent is Intercontinental Shipping Company Ltd (ICSL).
Speaking at yesterday’s post-Cabinet press briefing, Young said they have retained a senior counsel and a team of lawyers to pursue the case.
“We expecting if it has not already happened that they will be commencing action against the broker for the Galicia for the state they put the country in.”
Young said the last time he spoke to the legal team they were “calculating the damages that they (Government) would be entitled to.”
Last April, Young said the Galicia departed our shores at short notice prompting the Government to take legal action.
The Government was served with a two weeks notice by the owners of the Galicia-Transmed who indicated that they would be terminating the vessel’s contract.
Following its departure, a pile of documents was forwarded to Attorney General Faris Al -Rawi, who began conducting a probe into whether there may have been any wrongdoing in the Galicia deal.
Some of the documents that Al-Rawi received showed that the Galicia was initially deemed unsuitable for the seabridge.
Following a technical, commercial and statutory assessment done in March 2014 by then acting CEO of the Trinidad & Tobago Inter-Island Transport Corporation, Leon Grant, it was concluded that the vessel only satisfied two of the six areas deemed critical for its suitability to service the seabridge.
“With respect to some of the other actions that we took and forensic work that we did, coming out of what we found was suspicious circumstances of the Port and you would recall the Prime Minister telling the country what happened when he went before the Joint Select Committee of Parliament,” Young said.
At that time, Young said certain legal actions had already been taken.
“There is more action to be taken,” he said.
Last April, ICSL challenged Works and Transport Minister Rohan Sinanan’s claim that it had an 18-month contract to service the seabridge to October 31, 2017.
ICSL’s attorney Theresa Hadad said yesterday she had no comment until she spoke with her client.