An artist’s impression of the two tower blocks.

A member of the adjudicating committee that awarded a contract for the second phase of the Pender Gardens project in St Julian’s yesterday strongly excluded that anyone had influenced the tender award.

Peter Diacono, the Pender group’s chief executive officer, said the committee held a series of meetings with the three shortlisted consortia in a bid to achieve the “best quality for the best price”.

“Price was not a determining factor on which we based our decision. We were after quality. In fact, at the end we chose the consortium which had the highest bid, even though we managed to get the price down, but we knew that from them we would get the best possible quality,” Mr Diacono said yesterday.

He was testifying in the compilation of evidence against Pierre Mercieca, a 55-year-old from Attard who is denying trading in influence to win the tender last year, and against Josef Dimech, 35, a company director from Ta’ Xbiex who is pleading not guilty to being an accomplice.

The design and build tender was for the T1 and T2 towers and Block 17 at Pender Gardens in St Julian’s, covering construction, apertures and utilities.

Price was not a determining factor on which we based our decision

Pender Gardens had received three bids: from GP Borg; JAM consortium composed of Attard Brothers, JS Dimech and Mekkanika Ltd; and another consortium formed by Elbros Ltd.

Mr Diacono explained the entire tendering process and said the prices were never disclosed, although individual bidders were told that prices of items were too expensive when compared to rival bidders.

“The point of a tendering process is to have companies compete against each other,” he said.

His statements were echoed by group chairman Edmund Gatt Baldacchino, who also sat on the committee. He said that during negotiations the bidders were given indications of prices but never the global amount.

They said they knew Mr Dimech was part of the consortium that eventually won the tender but they had never seen Mr Mercieca before yesterday. Although the committee had given some indications, someone involved in the industry would have been able to reach a rough figure of their competitors’ bids, they added.

An internal investigation had found no evidence of an internal leak.

The company had “dragged its feet” on signing the contract because of the police investigation, at a cost of €6,000 a day in interest.

Contractor George Borg, from GP Borg, explained that he went to the police after Mr Dimech, a director of aluminium supplier JS Dimech, told him the subcontractors he (Mr Borg) had chosen were not favoured by Pender and urged him to take him and Mekkanika on board so they could win the contract.

Later he was approached by someone who introduced himself as George, a “Pender director”, who said he knew his bid was €18.5 million, that of Elbros was €19.5 million and Attard Brothers (JAM) €21 million.

The latter was eventually awarded the contract for €19 million.

“I panicked because this was inside information. Only I knew my bid. Not even my staff. I immediately realised that there was a big mess,” Mr Borg said as he confirmed filing a civil claim for a refund of his expenses.

The case, before Magistrate Aaron Bugeja, continues.

Inspector Ian Abdilla is prosecuting. Lawyer Joe Giglio appeared for Mr Dimech and lawyer Kathleen Grima for Mr Mercieca. Lawyers Franco Debono and Marion Camilleri appeared for Mr Borg.