Manning makes deal in Germany for VIP vehicles

Prime Minister Patrick Manning has concluded a deal with a German company to supply 200 luxury BMW vehicles for temporary use at two international summits in Port of Spain next year. He said it is a better arrangement that the one that local dealers offered.

The government is getting the vehicles for the Summit of the America to be held in April and the Commonwealth heads of Government Conference in November.

It has approved half a billion dollars for the conferences and reports had said $100 million would be spent on buying luxury vehicles.

There was a measure of confusion about that with at least three government ministers talking about the purchase of the vehicles, including an option to give them to various ministries after the summits were over. October 9, Foreign Affairs Minister Paula Gopee-Scoon said the Government had no choice but to buy the vehicles.

But then Manning told the PNM general council that it was never his intention to buy any vehicles, although NIPDEC had invited tenders from companies interested in supplying the vehicles.

On Thursday Manning announced that he had personally visited the showroom of a large BMW dealer in Germany and sealed the deal under which the Germans would ship the vehicles to Port of Spain for temporary use for both conferences and then take them back.

In dismissing local offers the prime minister said they were too costly. “The local people...put a price on the alternatives that is so high, that you have little alternative but to purchase the cars, which we are determined not to do. We don’t need 200 cars.”

President of the New Car Dealers Association, Philip Knaggs, told the Trinidad Guardian he was “flabbergasted” by Manning’s "hugely expensive and cumbersome proposition.”

Knaggs insisted that the government was spending millions of dollars when it didn't have to. His organization had offered to buy the vehicles and lend them to the state for use at both conference at no cost.

However there were two important conditions attached to the deal - that the dealers would own vehicles and the government waive the relevant taxes and duties to import and license the vehicles.

One government minister didn't like it because he said there would be a potential for lost revenue from taxes and duties. However, if it had accepted the deal it would not have to use any taxpayers' money to acquire transport for the summits.

Knaggs estimates that the deal Manning made with BMW would cost the Government at least TT$34.9 million based on lease costs and shipping both ways.

He said he cannot understand why the government would prefer to pay millions of dollars when it could have had the vehicles for free. “I am quite surprised that they are still looking at a high cost option when there is a no cost option on the table," he told the Guardian.

He said the offer of free use of the vehicles is still on the table because the government has not yet rejected it. However he added, “If the government is intent on spending money then there is nothing we can do about that."