Bechtel senior port and marine project manager Rex Gundle and CBRM Mayor Cecil Clarke speak the same language: I think it's a form of Esperanto. Whatever it is, it's not especially effective for conveying information.

Here is Gundle on Thursday explaining to CBC Information Morning host Steve Sutherland what Bechtel has accomplished for its "client" -- Harbor Port Development Partners -- to date:

"...the first thing we did was look at the general first gut check, the first assessment and be able to see the viability. And looking at the viability, looking at the challenges, look at the opportunities, having a background in the port industry myself, it allowed me to work with the clients -- both Marlene Usher and Albert [Barbusci] and Barry [Sheehy] -- to reach out to the shipping community and to the port operating community and be able to work within the streams to help develop marketing material that gave the proper opportunity for each individual stakeholder for the project."

Got that?

Earlier in the interview, asked who Bechtel's client was, Gundle had said the firm was "under contract" to "Harbor Ports [sic] Development Partners" (which he later referred to as a "group," although we know it comprises two people, Barbusci and Sheehy).

However, Gundle considers the "team" to be the CBRM, the Port of Sydney, Bechtel and now China Communications Construction Company.

Asked who was paying him, Gundle laughed and said, "I really don't want to get into that subject but we are engaged by the client and there are certain confidentialities that I must maintain."

Why is a representative of the "world's largest private construction company" shy about admitting he gets paid for his work? Could it be because admitting Bechtel was being paid would make Mayor Clarke's pride in the firm's participation in the port project seem misplaced? Gundle was also clear that Bechtel would be a "partner" in any future project, not an investor.

Gundle then insisted the project was "Purely private, everything about this is a private venture."

And here I must confess myself to be truly puzzled because our Mayor seems very involved in this "purely private venture;" and our port would, by definition, appear to be a public asset; and the greenfield site definitely belongs to the CBRM; and the Sydney Ports Development Corporation is surely not a private company in the usual sense of the term given that its directors are  Mayor Clarke, CBRM CAO Michael Merritt and Councillors Jim MacLeod, Kevin Saccary, George MacDonald and Clarence Prince.

It's all as clear as harbor mud.

The interview is here. Part II will air Friday morning. Stay tuned...