"We're talking about major strategic assets...and we have no plan"

Thursday 06 October 2016

Serious questions have been raised about how the Island plans to safeguard its major strategic assets such as the the port, the fuel farm and the power station at La Collette.

Yesterday, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) continued its investigation into why a key date in the renewal process for the lease on the fuel farm was missed, meaning the Island can't consider other options for the site for another decade.

The PAC heard evidence from the Chief Officer of Economic Development, Tourism, Sport and Culture, Mike King, and the Chief Officer of the Infrastructure Department John Rogers. 

Fuel company Rubis has just signed another 10 year lease for the fuel farm; the States needed to give the firm 18 months notice (in July 2014), if that lease was not to be renewed - but that key date was missed. 

Both Chief Officers who spoke yesterday suggested that the actual lease was the responsibility of the States Property Holdings department, which at that time would have come under the control of the Treasury Minister, Senator Philip Ozouf. He later lobbied hard to stop the lease being agreed with Rubis. 

Mr King said: "If you are trying to establish if any one minister, individual or department had overall responsibility for all of these things, the answer is no." He explained that different aspects of the deal were controlled by different authorities, such as the lease coming under Property Holdings, safety being the responsibility of the Fire and Rescue Service, and the operating agreement which is now in place with Rubis being negotiated by his department - but in partnership with the Chief Executive of the States (John Richardson) and the Law Officers' Department. And getting value for money on the deal was described as being CICRA's responsibility. 

He accepted that having so many diverse responsibilities, was a structural failing of the States: "If you take something with the strategic importance of fuel, then in an ideal world you would have someone responsible."

John Rogers continued: "When I got involved in 2009, I was suprised about the lack of strategic involvement in getting fuel into Jersey."

Both men argued that the reason the renewal of the fuel farm lease wasn't an issue they were focussed on, was that they said no one was raising problems with it.

Mike King commented: "If there had been significant issues which had been brought to (our attention)....if it had been an inefficient operation, an abuse of a monopoly position, we could have looked at it, but there was no evidence to suggest that was the case. Was it ever brought up as a material issue by anybody? The answer is no."

Mr King argued several times that if there was a problem with fuel costs in Jersey, it was with the garages who operated a 'low-volume, high margin' model, as there were so many of them, rather than with the prices charged to bring fuel in through the fuel farm. 

The PAC questioned the two chief officers as to whether given the strategic importance to the Island of the fuel farm, and the fact it was currently close to heavily populated areas, was there a strategic plan for its ideal location?

Mr King accepted that if they were starting from scratch, the current location wasn't ideal, and Mr Rogers said other places had been considered, such as in the quarry on the north coast operated by Ronez, on an island beyond the Dog's Nest rocks, or further south on the La Collette reclamation site. Those options would release the current site for housing. 

The PAC heard that the opportunity to move the fuel farm wasn't taken in 2006, or when the current lease was  signed this year, but that it was an option to look at in another decade. As the current Chief Officer of the Infrastructure Department, Mr Rogers said he would take the lead: "Im happy to lead it...but we've got a lot of strategies, the first thing we need to do is to bring the old strategies together."

That lack of strategic planning and leadership, particularly under the ministerial system of government which was supposed to bring joined-up thinking to the States and avoid the different departments working in silos, was heavily criticised by the Panel Chairman Deputy Andrew Lewis after the meeting:

"No one seems to take responsibility, and no one has a strategic plan. We are now ten years on, and there was no plan then, and there is no plan now. We are talking about major strategic assets for the island, not a corner shop, and we have no plan for those assets. If something went wrong they are all in the same place."