The SNP Scottish Government has been branded "corrupt" after it emerged key documents from the CalMac ferries contract went "missing".
Scottish Labour's Daniel Johnson took aim at Ivan McKee, Minister for Business, Trade, Tourism and Enterprise, in the Scottish Parliament earlier today over the fiasco.
Last week Scotland's Auditor General expressed his frustration at not being able to review all documents relating to the awarding of a contract for two ferries fraught with delays and overspends at Fergusons shipyard in Port Glasgow.
A recent report from Audit Scotland found there was “insufficient documentary evidence” to explain why the contract was given without a full refund guarantee.
In the years since the contract was awarded, the yard has been saved from administration by the Government, and the estimated cost has jumped from £97 million to at least £250 million.
The Glen Sannox and the as-yet-unnamed hull 802 are now expected to be completed between March and May 2023 and between October and December 2023 respectively.
Stephen Boyle expressed his frustration at the lack of documentation, saying he believed a record was not created at the time and the Scottish Government is not withholding details.
During Topical Questions today, Daniel Johnson MSP asked McKee about the "lost documentation".
He said: "To ask the Scottish Government what its position is on the potential impact on Scottish Government standard due diligence of reports of lost documentation related to the Ferguson Marine ferry contract.
"The problem is for transparency. The documents need to be there and they are not and the law requires it.
"This is not an isolated incident neither in the context of the sorry saga of the two ferries, nor and other Scottish Government interventions.
"It follows a pattern of an opaque decision making and roughshod process that can be seen elsewhere, such as the environmental indemnities for Liberty Steel - found to have breached state aid laws. The Lochaber smelter where hundreds of millions of pounds of taxpayers money put at risk through secret guarantee.
"The pattern is of due process that is deficient, lacking transparency and deliberately distorted to suit political ends rather than public interest.
"So you could call this many things negligent, incompetent, deficient.
"When these decisions have all been wilful and deliberate. The word I would use is corrupt, perhaps not for individual gain, but the corruption of the process for party political gains, contrary to the public interest."
McKee replied by saying if it wasn't for the government's intervention in nationalising the yard in Port Glasgow then jobs would have been lost in the industry.
He said: "A thorough search was taken for those documents and no ministerial response to that submission has been located.
"As already indicated, we've outlined an Audit Scotland report we have committed to a formal review following completion of the vessels project.
"What is important to recognise and Daniel Johnson and other members in the Chamber fail to recognise is that Fergusons, seven years after those events is still employing, hundreds and hundreds of people and are still contributing to the local economy."
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