Bidder stands by corruption claim

A former bidder in the privatisation of the super yacht facility yesterday claimed that a member of the evaluation committee had told him that "if you take care of me, I am in a position to help you".

Marine Engineer Paul Cardona made the claim in reply to a judicial protest filed earlier this month by Mimcol CEO Mario Mizzi, who was contesting Mr Cardona's corruption allegations made about him to the police.

Yesterday, Mr Cardona stood by those allegations.

In his counter protest, he said the words were uttered during a meeting between the two in the context that Mr Mizzi was also a member of the Privatisation Unit's evaluation committee.

He had immediately informed his consortium of Mr Mizzi's statement and reported him to Leonard Callus, a senior official at the Office of the Prime Minister.

In turn, Mr Callus informed Finance Minister Tonio Fenech who, instead of turning to the police, summoned the members of the privatisation unit, including Mr Mizzi, to inform them about the allegations, Mr Cardona said.

Mr Cardona said he could not understand how Mr Mizzi could claim that he was never told about the corruption allegations before May 2010, when Finance Minister Tonio Fenech himself had declared that he summoned the members of the Privatisation Unit's negotiating team to tell them about the allegation of irregularities.

Mr Mizzi's claim that he had alleged corruption because his bid had been turned down did not hold water because he had reported to Mr Callus before the privatisation unit had even made its recommendations to the government.

As to the claim that the evaluation committee found that none of the bids was satisfactory, leading to the privatisation process being called off, Mr Cardona said that, had this been true, the Privatisation Unit could have requested the bidders to submit fresh bids as it had done in the case of Malta Shipyards.

One could see that, while the winning Palumbo bid for Malta Shipyards was of €420 per square metre and that of MIYY Consortium was €326 per square metre for the Manoel Island Yacht Yard, his consortium, SYC Ltd, had offered €712 per square metre for the super yacht facility and demonstrated its technical capabilities.

There was no reason, therefore, for its bid to be found unacceptable or unsatisfactory, Mr Cardona said.

He called on Mr Mizzi to admit his mistakes and held him responsible for any damages.

In his judicial protest, Mr Mizzi had said that the privatisation process was handled in an honest and transparent manner and that Mr Cardona's allegations were malicious.