Bidders who fail to fulfil the administrative requirements of a tender document will now be given two days' grace to rectify their position instead of being dropped from the tendering process.

The government decided to simplify the process for public contracts because, sometimes, it was not getting its full value for money, Finance Minister Tonio Fenech said yesterday.

"It's not the first time that only one of six bids is valid because the others fail to comply with the administrative requirements," Mr Fenech said.

Bids, he said, had sometimes been dropped from the tendering race because of a missing signature or for failing to include the company accounts. But bidders will from now on be given two working days to fully comply with any gaps in administrative requirements.

Each mistake will cost the bidder €50, a "small" fee compared to the worth of the tenders that sometimes ran into millions of euros. The fine would send a clear message that it was the bidders' responsibility, Mr Fenech said.

The Contracts Department had to stick to the law and could not make exceptions for anyone. "The responsibility to make sure you submit everything is yours and not the department's," Mr Fenech told company owners and lawyers.

With 16 per cent of state funds spent on public contracts, the government had to secure the best value for money for the product or service it required, he said. But in the past few months, certain projects of national interest running into millions of euros in EU funds and with tight deadlines were at risk because the government did not have a choice of bidders.

"This is a great risk on a national level and we can lose EU funds, to say nothing of the great frustration caused on both sides," Mr Fenech said.