Jamie Halcro Johnston: SNP and Green MSPs continue to block an independent inquiry into the 'worst public procurement scandal since devolution' as ferries priced at less than £100 million could cost up to £400 million and neither of them are in service
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The Highlands and Islands needs good transport infrastructure. For people, that’s being able to get out and about, get to work or to appointments or just to see family and friends. For businesses, it’s to allow goods to get to markets or for customers to easily get to them.
And good transport links are even more vital for our islands and remote communities. That’s why the SNP’s ferry fiasco is so serious and why local representatives like myself continue to press ministers, as we did in two parliamentary debates just last week, on how they have managed to bungle this critical issue.
To recap: there is a serious lack of resilience in our ferry network and this is leading to increasing incidents of breakdown and unreliable service. And the replacement programme currently involves just two ferries under construction, and these are now five years late and millions over budget.
In the worst public procurement scandal since devolution, ferries that were supposed to cost less than £100m could now cost as much as £400m. And neither of them are in service.
Yet Nicola Sturgeon’s response, just days ago, to being asked to apologise for this utter fiasco – and wasted taxpayer cash – was “Oh, for goodness sake”.
And this dismissive – and negligent – attitude is one supported by her SNP and Green MSPs who continue to block an independent inquiry into this mess.
Parliamentary democracy cannot work without transparency and accountability, but nationalist MSPs – including those from the Highlands and Islands – are happy for the public to be kept in the dark.
Even Scotland’s Auditor General criticised the lack of record keeping by SNP ministers – raising questions about its legality. But the Scottish Government just claimed that the appropriate – and, potentially, damning – paperwork “cannot be located”.
How convenient. And so the cover up continues.
Every day brings new horrors from Ukraine. While individual incidents of criminal behaviour are, sadly, to be expected (but never accepted) in war, what we are seeing now is the systematic abuse of civilians by Russian troops.
The atrocities of Bucha are being repeated in other communities. Civilians tortured and murdered. Mass graves. Or bodies left in the street – their hands tied behind them – with no attempt to hide them by Russian forces.
And then there are the terrible accounts coming from the city of Mariupol which the Russians seem intent on levelling to the ground.
But as shocked as we are, can we really be surprised? This is how civilian populations were treated by the Russians in Chechnya and in Syria. There are already investigations opened on Russian war crimes in Ukraine. But these are crimes against humanity.
What is now clear is that there can be no way back for Putin and his regime.
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