[attach id=277616 size="medium"]Former Enemalta chairman Alex Tranter addressing the PAC yesterday. Photo: Jason Borg[/attach]
Former Enemalta chairman Alex Tranter yesterday said that when he headed the fuel procurement committee he used an “inherited” procedure that did not provide for minutes to be taken.
Meetings did not have minutes taken to ensure that no one knew the price quoted by the successful bidder due to the sensitive nature of the fuel industry, he said.
In line with procedure, committee members were not allowed to leave the chairman’s office or communicate via telephone when adjudicating a tender and this to ensure there were no leaks.
He was fielding questions by members of the Public Accounts Committee, chaired by Nationalist MP Jason Azzopardi, that is discussing the conclusions of an audit of Enemalta’s fuel procurement procedures by the Auditor General. The Auditor flagged serious shortcomings between 2008 and 2011.
In a testimony that lasted four hours, Mr Tranter said he had been appointed non-executive chairman in July 2005 by former minister Austin Gatt. He stepped down on May 31, 2010.
He chaired the fuel procurement committee and adopted the procedure which, he insisted, he had inherited from Enemalta and not from his predecessor, Tancred Tabone (who is facing criminal charges in connection with an oil procurement scandal).
There was no handover bet-ween Mr Tabone and himself.
Mr Tranter explained that, once a tender was adjudicated, bids would be sealed in an envelope, signed by all committee members and put in a safe in the chairman’s office.
Decisions on big tenders were communicated to the minister via e-mail. He had copies of such e-mails.
Mr Tranter said that he had never discussed suppliers with the minister.
Justice Parliamentary Secretary Owen Bonnici noted that it recently emerged that Enemalta’s fuel procurement committee took minutes until 2003.
He also pointed out that recent allegations of corruption referred to the years 2003 and 2004.
Mr Tranter said he only heard about the 2003 minutes in the news last Sunday.
“When I was chairman of Enemalta no one had any idea of any corruption going on... there were no minutes.
“I didn’t decide it but it was an Enemalta practice I inherited.
“Today, in these circumstances, I say we should have taken minutes,” he said.
He felt it was unfortunate the Auditor General had not spoken to him before the July 21 report was published.
Two days after its publication, he sent a written statement to the Auditor outlining the inherited procedure “from memory”.
The role of the committee was to receive and analyze bids, negotiate and adjudicate. Bids were received by fax or e-mail sent to the chairman’s address and opened by his personal assistant.
They were printed and put in a file that was opened in the presence of the fuel procurement committee.
A password-assisted e-mail system was an “evolution” that came after his chairmanship.
When I was chairman of Enemalta, no one had any idea of any corruption going on
Asked about the part of the Auditor’s report that referred to “abysmal record keeping”, he said doodles published in the media were working notes, not minutes.
“The interpretation that they are minutes is embarrassing. Don’t keep repeating something that is not true,” he said.
Nationalist MP Beppe Fenech Adami said there were serious accusations that Totsa won tenders when it had not bid.
Mr Tranter said this was “absolutely” not the case. As the Auditor’s report showed, in most cases the cheaper bidder won, except for five cases.
In his days as chairman there were three cases where the cheapest bidder was not successful and this was due to such factors as quality, delivery or security stocks.
There were no one-to-one meetings with suppliers, like Totsa. He said he never had any contact with Frank Sammut, who was a consultant to Mr Tabone and who is also facing criminal charges.
He insisted that, through negotiations, the committee managed, “many times”, to reduce rates, sometimes bringing them below the lowest bidder and saving millions of euros.
Asked about political interference, he said that, in 2007, Enemalta was “under siege” with the spiralling of oil prices and this was discussed with the Government at a moment of national crisis.
Uncomfortable and irritated
The Auditor General’s report cast a bad light on many people who worked in the best interest of Enemalta, Mr Tranter said.
When asked by Labour MP Justyne Caruana why he looked so relaxed about the matter when the Auditor’s report criticised the corporation at the time he was chairman, he said: “I might look relaxed and I may control my emotions but it does not mean that, for the past two months, this did not affect me. I felt very uncomfortable and irritated.”
He added that this was his first opportunity to voice his views since the report was published and felt that the Auditor should have consulted him to better understand the context.
Mr Tranter had declined to comment in the media following the publication of the report.