Adds Finance Ministry reply.
Opposition leader Joseph Muscat said this evening that the Auditor-General in his report on the power station extension tender had confirmed all the information given to him by the Labour Party.
The report, tabled in Parliament this evening, said that no hard evidence had been found of corruption in the granting of the company to Danish company BWSC.
"The auditor used his words carefully. He did not say there was no corruption, but that no hard evidence had been found of such corruption," Dr Muscat told a press conference.
He said the auditor's report confirmed that there was a whole series of irregularities in the way this tender was processed and the contract awarded.
Hard evidence of corruption had not been found only because certain people, particularly BWSC local representative Joseph Mizzi had, in the words of the auditor, not collaborated with the investigation or claimed to have forgotten when asked direct questions.
Dr Muscat said the Auditor-General spoke of his own 'serious doubts' about the lack of satisfactory explanations to various points he had raised.
"If the Prime Minister is happy with this report, his standards of public administration are very different from ours," Dr Muscat said.
TENDERING PROCESS 'SHOULD HAVE BEEN STOPPED'
Dr Muscat noted that the Auditor-General himself had said that the tendering process should have been stopped once the regulations on emission thresholds had been changed. Such a statement, Dr Muscat said, was ‘no joke'.
Furthermore, while the prime minister and minister Austin Gatt had played down the conflict of interest of Enemalta chairman Alex Tranter, who also worked for the contractor who won the civil works contract, the auditor general said that Mr Tranter only declared his conflict of interest after appointing the adjudicating committee and the evaluation board, who made recommendations to the Contracts Committee.
The auditor had said that Mr Tranter should have resigned immediately.
Also notable in the report, Dr Muscat said, was how the auditor declared that he was ‘not convinced' by the explanations given by Enemalta officials when he questioned them on how consultant company Lehmeyer was selected, despite it being blacklisted in some international quarters.
The auditor's report, Dr Muscat said, confirmed that Joseph Mizzi, one time local representative of Lehmeyer and then of BWSC, had received inside information from Enemalta, but the source of that information could not be traced.
The auditor also said he could not understand the haste with which the contract with BWSC was signed and he noted the ‘risk' being taken in the choice of untested technology.
Dr Muscat said it had resulted that the competing bidders for the tender had not filed appeals at the end of the process because they were never informed that a bidder had been selected.
Questions had also been raised by the auditor on the contract conditions.
These conditions, Dr Muscat, included a €300 million penalty if the contract was cancelled.
Furthermore, it resulted that it would be the government which would suffer penalties if Mepa permits were not issued on time.
Penalties to be imposed should emissions be higher than declared by BWSC had been capped at a low level, and there was not even a maintenance agreement, Dr Muscat said.
Concluding, Dr Muscat said this contract was a sham and the people would be paying for it through their health and their money.
CORRUPTION 'NOT RULED OUT' - AD
Alternattiva Demokratika said the Auditor General's report on the Delimara Power Station extension was clear. "The fact that he says that he has no 'hard evidence' of corruption means that corruption is not ruled out. The Auditor General himself asserts that he could not delve deeper because of the lack of cooperation from the persons who had a direct interest in the outcome of the investigation," AD chairman Michael Briguglio said
"What is the difference between "hard evidence of corruption" and "soft evidence of corruption"? To my mind the message is loud and clear, the power station tendering process was riddled with gross incompetence as a minimum."
He asked who would shoulder the political responsibility.
FINANCE MINISTRY REACTION
The Finance Ministry said Dr Muscat had admitted that the auditor found no corruption, and that the power station extension would use the latest technology.
The ministry said the other bidders had been free to appeal, but they did not.
There had been no irregularities in the granting of the contract, but the auditor had made recommendations to address administrative shortcomings which stemmed from inexperience and poor coordination. Dr Muscat was turning recommendations into confirmation of irregularities.
There had been no undue haste in the signing of the contract, the ministry said. The signing was made after the tendering process was concluded and there were no appeals.
Furthermore, contrary to what was said in the executive summary of the report, the legislative changes (on emissions) had not changed contract conditions. The changes only bought local emissions thresholds in line with those of the EU.
As for the chairman, the ministry said that before the formal tendering process, a call for expressions of interest was made and BWSC indicated their interest and their intention to subcontract local contractors. The chairman had links with one of the sub-contractors and therefore at that stage, he declared his interest and excluded himself from the tendering process.
Dr Muscat was mistaken, the ministry said, when he again claimed there were penalties of €300 million if the government did not honour the contract. The auditor had not said this.
The ministry said the power station extension would mean cleaner air and a secure power supply for Malta. It would also mean the closure of Marsa power station, which Dr Muscat appeared to want to remain open.
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