FOIA request seeks disclosure on Blue Wave Harmony procurement

For­mer gov­ern­ment mem­bers Stu­art Young and Renu­ka Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal, have filed a Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act (FOIA) re­quest on be­half of so­cial me­dia com­men­ta­tor Wen­dell Ever­s­ley seek­ing of­fi­cial records re­lat­ed to the pro­cure­ment and op­er­a­tion of the ves­sel Blue Wave Har­mo­ny.

The FOIA is re­quest­ing dis­clo­sure from the Na­tion­al In­fra­struc­ture De­vel­op­ment Com­pa­ny Lim­it­ed (NID­CO) con­cern­ing the ves­sel’s en­gage­ment on the in­ter is­land sea bridge and the use of pub­lic funds con­nect­ed to it.

Ac­cord­ing to the ap­pli­ca­tion, the re­quest tar­gets records de­tail­ing the pro­cure­ment method­ol­o­gy used to se­cure the ves­sel, in­clud­ing in­vi­ta­tions to ten­der, bid sub­mis­sions, eval­u­a­tion re­ports and any doc­u­ment­ed jus­ti­fi­ca­tion for the se­lec­tion process, par­tic­u­lar­ly if sole-source or emer­gency pro­cure­ment pro­ce­dures were ap­plied. The fil­ing al­so seeks Cab­i­net Notes, Min­utes and min­is­te­r­i­al sub­mis­sions con­nect­ed to ap­proval of the ac­qui­si­tion and its fi­nanc­ing.

The re­quest fur­ther asks for copies of ex­e­cut­ed con­tracts, char­ter par­ty agree­ments, amend­ments and any bro­ker­age or com­mis­sion arrange­ments linked to the ves­sel. It al­so seeks tech­ni­cal and safe­ty doc­u­men­ta­tion, in­clud­ing due dili­gence re­ports, ma­rine sur­veys, clas­si­fi­ca­tion cer­ti­fi­ca­tions and records ad­dress­ing de­fi­cien­cies iden­ti­fied in April 2024 and any cor­rec­tive mea­sures tak­en af­ter­ward.

In ad­di­tion, the ap­pli­ca­tion calls for in­ci­dent-re­lat­ed records con­nect­ed to the ves­sel’s berthing ac­ci­dent, in­clud­ing Har­bour Mas­ter and pi­lot re­ports as well as dam­age as­sess­ments. Fi­nan­cial doc­u­men­ta­tion is al­so be­ing re­quest­ed, in­clud­ing to­tal con­tract val­ues, pay­ment sched­ules, in­voic­es and fi­nanc­ing arrange­ments tied to the en­gage­ment.

Sagram­s­ingh-Sook­lal said the re­quest is ground­ed in “con­sti­tu­tion­al val­ues of trans­paren­cy, de­mo­c­ra­t­ic ac­count­abil­i­ty, and re­spon­si­ble man­age­ment of pub­lic funds”, not­ing that the ac­qui­si­tion in­volved sub­stan­tial pub­lic ex­pen­di­ture and that cit­i­zens are en­ti­tled to un­der­stand the pro­cure­ment path­way and over­sight ex­er­cised.

The let­ter states:

“This re­quest is not pri­vate or spec­u­la­tive in na­ture; it is firm­ly root­ed in the con­sti­tu­tion­al val­ues of trans­paren­cy, de­mo­c­ra­t­ic ac­count­abil­i­ty, and re­spon­si­ble man­age­ment of pub­lic funds.”

Un­der the Free­dom of In­for­ma­tion Act, NID­CO has 30 days to de­ter­mine the ap­pli­ca­tion. Fail­ure to re­spond with­in that pe­ri­od would con­sti­tute a deemed re­fusal and could re­sult in ju­di­cial re­view pro­ceed­ings.