Power station facts to be explained to Brussels

All the facts related to the power station extension were public and would be explained to the European Commission, Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi said yesterday.

He was reacting to a report in The Sunday Times which revealed that the government had until today to answer queries raised by Brussels over the controversial tender awarded to Danish company BWSC.

A letter of formal notice – the first of a three-stage EU legal procedure – was sent to the government by the Commission in June claiming Malta broke EU procurement rules when awarding the controversial €200 million tender to BWSC.

When asked, Dr Gonzi did not say what concerns the Commission had raised, insisting everything linked to the issue was in the public domain after a lengthy investigation by the Auditor General.

“All this was explained to the Commission and if need be we will explain things further,” Dr Gonzi said, pointing out it was not unusual for Brussels to seek clarifications on a number of issues.

With reference to the Labour Party’s call to publish the corres-pondence between the government and the Commission, Dr Gonzi said he would do this at a later stage but not while the government was still communicating with Brussels.

According to EU sources, the Commission had concerns that Malta might have infringed EU public procurement law in the tender procedure conducted by Enemalta.

“We are just trying to seek clarifications from the Maltese authorities. We hope we will be satisfied and close the case. If not, we might choose to go to another stage in our infringement procedures,” the sources said.

Concerns over certain decisions taken by Enemalta at tender stage had been raised by the Auditor General. BWSC, for example, should have been disqualified when the bids were opened because it provided prototype technology that went contrary to tender specifications for a “tried and tested” power station.

However, Enemalta had then asked Lahmeyer International to conduct a technical evaluation of all bids, which was instrumental in keeping the eventual winner in the running.