Tender adjudicators slammed

Opposition leader Joseph Muscat said it was shameful that the so-called “experts” adjudicating the Delimara power station extension tender had not looked up BWSC and its reputation during the process.

Neither had they done so for independent consultant company Lehmeyer, which was even blacklisted by the World Bank and which once also had BWSC’s representative in Malta Joseph Mizzi as its local representative. The auditor had found that the Lehmeyer comments were instrumental in the selection of the bidder.

Winding up the debate, Dr Muscat said he could not see how any MP who truly represented the people could vote against the opposition motion which condemned the government over the way the contract had been awarded.

He indicated that there was lack of consent in the House as to the manner of selecting the tender to be awarded, and this mainly due to the involvement of Mr Mizzi.

While the government had claimed that it had stopped work on the power station extension until the auditor’s inquiry was completed, it had actually signed the contract with BWSC on the same day that the inquiry started, and it had presented the project to Mepa, which issued an outline development permit.

Dr Muscat said that the Nationalist government had failed to pass the test of good governance which had been advocated by Lawrence Gonzi himself. He insisted that although Dr Gonzi had reiterated that good governance meant that the public was to be given full access to all information, it was now his government that had failed to publish the full contract. He questioned the reason for not publishing all the information, especially the sub-contractors’ list.

He described the government’s position on the motion as an attack on the office of the Auditor General, an approach which was habitual for the government. Other attacks had been made by the government on the previous auditor regarding his inquiry into the Voice of the Mediterranean, and also the Mepa auditor. Dr Muscat described a vote against the motion as being equivalent to a vote against the report of the Auditor General.

The government, he said, had opted for technology which existed before, but was actually a prototype because its units had never been combined as they would be in Malta.

While the auditor had found no hard evidence of corruption in the contract, he had complained of lack of cooperation from a number of persons who claimed to have forgotten what had taken place, particularly Mr Mizzi.

Clearly, Mr Mizzi had had an early copy of the specifications for the power station extension, but the auditor had been unable to establish the source of the leak at Enemalta.

The auditor had gone so far as to declare he did not believe all those who had appeared before him, including some Enemalta officials.

Dr Muscat recalled that as far back as 2006 Dr Gatt had said that a gas-operated power station was the best way forward, but the government had strangely then opted for a power station that would operate on heavy fuel oil.

The urgency for the installation of an extension of the power station was only the result of the government’s failure to act earlier, Dr Muscat said.

It was telling that the auditor had said that the tendering process should have been stopped once the emissions thresholds were changed in 2008. The change had had a direct impact on the tendering process, the auditor had said. The EU itself was conducting an inquiry in this regard.

The Leader of the Opposition said the government had not denied that the power station would produce 31 tonnes of fly-ash every day. And the hazardous nature was confirmed by Finance Minister Tonio Fenech himself, who had said that shipment would be in specially-sealed containers. And it had been revealed that the government did not yet have a waste disposal contract.

Dr Muscat said the auditor had confirmed that a gas plant would have been the cleanest technology and would have occupied the smallest footprint at Delimara.

Indeed, the government appeared to accept that the chosen plant was not the best for the environment, but it was claiming that it was most cost-effective. But this was not true.

The tender was based on a formula which gave 75 per cent weighting to finances and just 25 per cent to other considerations such as technology and the environment. Enemalta had claimed that the Contracts Department had set that formula, yet that department, somehow, did not intervene in such contracts.

The whole funding issue was flawed, including the claim that the maintenance agreement would cost €18 million. The auditor had not found a direct link between the main contract and the proposed maintenance contract, and had said there could actually be a discrepancy of 40 per cent.

The government, Dr Muscat said, could surely have found the money to build a power station which did not pose a hazard to the people’s health, in the same way as it had found the money for a roofless theatre, a new Parliament and loans to Greece.

It was humiliating that the government had had to seek BWSC’s permission to publish the contract, and that BWSC had only agreed to the publication of parts of the contract and insisted only one copy could be produced.

The opposition, he said, was scanning the contract and would hand out copies to the media. BWSC could try suing it, if it wished.