 I think Gongona and Escoto have an easy defence of trying to keep the concessional finance and get a system that was appropriate. They were not party to the loan agreement but merely had the details that it had to be a French company (not how French), there had to be a Frenchman in charge of the project etc. Yes the French embassy had an opinion that French had to be broadly interpreted as having manufacturing or whatever, but in the tender there was no such proviso. Tied aid has been estimated to cost the recipient 30% more than competitive bidding.
As for SRT/ST, it is perfectly normal to set up specific subsidiaries to meet various bidding criteria and to provide the required expertise and or capital from the parent company.
If the Ombudsman was worried about value for money not merely the low cost loan which could only be used to buy a sub-standard system, then he would find that the BFAR has saved the Philippines money not lost them any. A closer look at why the MOF agreed in haste to the French loan and the intended winner of the project (majority owned by the French state) would clarify that issue. |
Woh. That could be costly in a number of ways. Not just the BFAR Contract, but having to employ local lawyers etc to counter this and also any knock on to other countries who may have anti corruption legislation (on the basis that companies or individual could be thought guilty until proven innocent ).It looks like they are going after ST, and not SRT which could be an interesting distinction. Wonder why. Do they have any private correspondence or recordings that indicate ST was 'off the record' ? |
I know this has been rumbling on for quite some time, but the "graft" case in the Philippines seems to have reached an inflexion point, with the head of BFAR now having been replaced and SRT being implicated. I see from the linked story, Simon is now a defendant in a proper legal case not just an inquiry.
As mentioned earlier, this may well be politically driven by the fisheries community, and I'm certain, CLS but it is not good publicity or a desired reflection on our company. Especially with follow on contracts supposedly being discussed and other contracts in the region still to get over the line.
I still hold as I believe these issues will be overcome and the contracts will materialise (at least enough of them) but this is a developing risk for SRT. |
EU experts to inspect Lake Tanganyika fishing activities
RUKWA: A TEAM of experts from the European Union (EU) are expected to inspect fishing activities on Lake Tanganyika mid this year.
The aim is to ensure that fishermen and fishery stakeholders meet the required standards set by EU.
With the inspection, EU wants to satisfy itself that fishing activities on Lake Tanganyika have met the required fishing standards set by the EU.
The EU Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) aims to ensure that fisheries and aquaculture are ecologically, economically and socially sustainable.
It is also concerned with maintaining employment and sector’s economic viability. Lake Tanganyika second largest fresh water body in Africa, contains 17 per cent of the world’s available surface freshwater.
“Our country is among of the countries exporting fish products to competitive European markets. So, the EU has a method of carrying out regular inspection on countries which are exporting fishery or marine products to European markets,” further explained.
Moreover, the EU fish inspection on Lake Tanganyika has coincided with the government decision to suspend fishing activities in Lake Tanganyika for three consecutive months to boost the population of fish.
The suspension will last three months from May 15, this year. |
Lav highlights the amount of manpower devoted to the Philippines. I assume that this relates to impending coastguard contracts. (1 billion USD over 10 years?). I also assume that the recent move of the year end was to allow for Philgeps qualification. |
Mr T mentioned Tanzania in his recent interview with City AM. I suspect that this potential contract will soon be very relevant to SRT. The Country has access to numerous water related assets. There are inland lakes with a lot of boats and also off shore islands. We will not know the size of the contract until the tenders are announced.
Where will the funding come from and will it be in stages?
Clearly SRT are in discussions. Let us also not forget that Kenya was mentioned, where the US navy is building resources to counteract China's activities, |
Tanzania: Zanzibar to Introduce Surveillance Radar, MV Tracking Systems in Indian Ocean
19 APRIL 2024
Tanzania Daily News (Dar es Salaam)
DAR ES SALAAM: Zanzibar is planning to introduce surveillance Radar and marine vessel tracking system to promote safer fishing and transportation activities in the Indian Ocean.
This was unveiled by Zanzibar's Minister for Infrastructure, Communication and Transport, Dr Khalid Salum Mohamed. He made this revelation in Dar es Salaam on Thursday while officiating opening of the of a two day Regional Seminar on Africa Ferry Safety which was convened at Julius Nyerere International Convectional Center.
"Currently there are around 380 illegal harbors used for boarding and disembarking of passengers and cargo. This contravenes safety measures. The government is in the process of dealing with this by introducing surveillance radar and marine vessels tracking system," the minister observed |
Incidentally, SRT seem to now have at least four expats based in the Philippines, as opposed to one in Indonesia and none elsewhere (leaving out JF in Toulouse and Francois in Vancouver who happen to live there). Dean Jones, whom some of you have met, still seems to be with them although he doesn't appear directly on SRT's LinkedIn. There are also a systems engineer and a success manager as well as the Middle East programme manager who has relocated. These three have moved to Manila relatively recently, the success manager very recently, so have nothing to do with the installation of the IMEMS project. I don't remember anything in the tender document about a continuing level of in-country support or indeed anything at all after the provision of four years satellite coverage.
So what is this relatively high head-count doing over there? The sales people, which in the Philiipines is Tucker, fly in and out. So my best and only guess is the PCG. It is unlike SRT to commit to in-country overhead in the hope of winning a contract so my tentative conclusion is that they are already working closely with the PCG (and vice versa) on the future implementation of projects soon to be tendered. Tomorrow is the last day for submitting new projects to the budget people for potential inclusion in the 2025 budget. |
I would say that it is very political. The new Minister of Agriculture is a commercial fisher and it looks like the BFAR were enforcing the transponders issue except in the region covered by the ruling. I imagine this is the result.
It is very strange that the Ombudsman didn't look further at the reasons why the French loan specified that the bidder be French. A Senator with French family ties had been pushing for the project. The BFAR did not want to buy from CLS and they went through all the DBM and NEDA approvals by the book and transparently. The Ombudsman himself has complained about corruption at the Ombudsman.
Whatever the ins and outs, it looks like Marcos and the Department of Agriculture has been captured by the commercial fishers. I don't see much rolling out soon.
Edit. from two days ago. |
The article is not news. It's almost a year old. |
Probably a lot more politics involved than is obvious, but isn't great to have SRT associated with this sort of story. |
hxxps://insiderpaper.com/philippine-coast-guard-to-join-military-drills-with-united-states/
"The Balikatan drills will involve a simulation of an armed recapture of an island off the western province of Palawan, near the South China Sea, and the sinking of a vessel off the northern province of Ilocos Norte, several hundred kilometres from Taiwan."
Will the exercises involve our kit? |
I suppose that they will be thinking that they can shift 10,000 and more of these a year once they get traction to get to the $20-30 million they forecast. That doesn't seem outlandish in principle, but the leisure AIS market does not seem very big. Vesper went bust and the recent post about our new US wholesale distributer had SRT's offerings in two of the three best-seller positions but both were Class A devices so probably not leisure boaters.
I have been musing about these new hires that they are looking for to develop portal access to the Geovs hub. Maybe it is something that they have always wanted to do but didn't have the cash. That rules itself out because they still don't have the cash. I can only conclude that it is client driven and that client must be the PCG. Bakamla has already signed their contract even if the start has been delayed with UKEF etc so that will not have been re-speced. They would surely not spend more money doing something for the Saudis given their prevarication or whatever ailment they suffer from. That leaves the PCG as the main impetus with the BFAR a distant second. I suppose that the PCG will want to own the system and share defined aspects with others via the web? |
Early launched Beta products that are then progressively improved via market use and feedback, vs, getting it right in the first place.
Not a good way to treat customers who effectively become outsourced funders of ongoing R&D.
Agree, better to 'hit the mark' at launch. |
Sounds like SRT made the right call by disappointing us shareholders with the delays rather than releasing a product that doesn't quite hit the mark. |
Thank you WCE. A very in depth account. |
A piece, mostly, on Nexus on Panbo. |
It's about time we had a webcast with an update on Q5.
Nothing fresh on the Gallery since the great postage stamp find. |
I had been very surprised at how quickly the Philippines MOD re-configured their modernization plan towards more of a US posture (one of the aims was to align more closely with their international partners, i.e. the US and Japan) and got Presidential approval for it, a matter of months really. It is obvious now with all this summitry going on. The US has promised $500 million a year for five years in grant support and would of course have wanted a clear and sensible plan for the use of this. It seems to be almost exclusively oriented towards the South China Sea.
I would expect to see the PCG plans quite soon and maybe we will be in a position to ascertain how SRT fits in. Once a tender comes out we should know for sure, but I do not expect the market to realize that it will represent a mere starting point. SRT has been bandying big numbers around for so long with no tangible outcomes. |
cynical observation but occasionally true for high ranking persons. Time to send 'em to jail I say. |
If the same thing happened here in the UK, one would receive a knighthood, pension, medal and promotion. |
apparently, it was well known for years that this lady was milking the bank for loans to hundreds of shell companies that belonged to her but were disguised to not reveal that. She was well connected in high circles and her contacts were well rewarded for turning a blind eye. This prosecution seems to be a response to public anger at the level of corruption and the damage non-action is doing to the ruling party. |
Back in the day when I lived in Saigon, I remember a minister in charge of electricity being given a death sentence for trousering a bunch of money, $400 million if memory serves. I said to my interpreter/driver that it seemed a bit harsh and that the minister was a bit of an idiot to think he could get away with it (the project was a North/South cable and very high profile and he nicked the cable). My man said to me well yes it might seem a tad tough on him but just think how rich his family was going to be for generations. |
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