A senior civil servant has written to two ministers to say he was "badly let down" by a failure to clarify the delay in a ferry tender process wasn't down to a mistake he made on social media.
Richard Corrigan was a senior reporting officer in the joint ferry tender process with Guernsey but withdrew from the process after "inadvertently" voting for DFDS in an informal poll on Facebook.
Two emails from Mr Corrigan to the chief minister and economic development minister have been published after a freedom of information request.
In one of the emails, Mr Corrigan wrote: "I feel badly let down by the failure to establish a clear narrative with media over the delayed decision-making on future sea connectivity."
'Delay down to political decision-making'
Mr Corrigan went on to write in the email on 6 November that: "This has left an open position for media to speculate that the reason for delay is down to my recusal and most recently, to imply some form of bias towards one of the bidders."
Mr Corrigan acknowledged his error in the email but also said that it was not the reason for the delay.
He said: "The delay of this past two-weeks has clearly been down to political decision-making in Jersey and differentiated positions between the Channel Islands."
Mr Corrigan clarified in the email that "neither bidder was appointable upon the conclusion of the process" but felt the legal elements around DFDS's bid were "most likely to be overcome in further dialogue" as opposed to the "fundamental issues with Condor's involvement within the BF tender."
On 13 November the States of Jersey said it was starting a new tender process for a Jersey only service after both bidders failed the joint tender process.
DFDS was announced as the preferred bidder for Jersey on 3 December.