NEWS | Wednesday, 28 May 2008

Bidder protests, alleges “highly irregular, abusive” tender procedures

David Darmanin
Some weeks ago, the media put pressure on the Contracts Department over tender procedures related to the Malta South Sewage Treatment Plant (Works) contract. Yesterday Costruzioni Dondi S.p.A., one of the aggrieved bidders for the same tender, filed a judicial protest on grounds of a dozen alleged irregularities against the director of contracts, finance minister Tonio Fenech, the Water Services Corporation (WSC), infrastructure minister Austin Gatt and prime minister Lawrence Gonzi.
The protest explains the aggrieved bidder’s version of how a letter informing of Costruzioni Dondi’s exclusion from the tender process fails to provide justifiable reasons for which the offer was disqualified. Furthermore, within less than seven days of receipt of the disqualification notice, the bidders submitted a formal request to the contracts department for reconsideration, but it seems that the director of contracts failed to refer this complaint to the chairman of the appeals board, resulting in Costruzioni Dondi’s allegation of unfair treatment.
“The procedure adopted by the Director (of the contracts department) with regards to the adjudication of the contract in question was highly irregular, abusive and it infringes on the rules applicable to public contracts,” the protest read, adding that the cheapest bid out of the two remaining is being offered at €84 million.
Responding to the call for tenders issued last year were a total of five bidders, three of whom were notified of their disqualification some two weeks after elections this year. Despite the budget of €57 million set by the WSC, the offers submitted by the two remaining bidders stand at 81.8 per cent and 47 per cent over budget.
The protest also declares that if Tonio Fenech decides to renegotiate the prices submitted by the two bidders still in the race, “the reasons for exclusion provided to the complainants (reasons that are being strongly contested) will no longer remain relevant at face value, in view of the fact that it does not make any logical or financial sense to exclude a contractor on grounds of lack of experience in the construction of plants at a certain cost, when that same cost will now be reduced.”
The contracts department was also accused of changing the terms and conditions of the tender in question “in such a way that a number of interested companies and consortia where excluded de facto.” Such restrictions could be tantamount to irregularity.
Asked whether any of the three disqualified bidders proposed an offer within the set budget, a spokesperson for the Finance Ministry said: “The financial offer of the disqualified bidders has not been opened.”