Economic Affairs Minister Chris Cardona has come under fire. Photo: Chris Sant Fournier

The National Audit Office (NAO) has criticised Economic Affairs Minister Chris Cardona and parliamentary secretary Edward Zammit Lewis over the re-ranking of firms which had bid for a contract.

The contract was to provide legal services over the granting of concessions for the operation of casinos. The re-ranking was done after the original ranking was made by an Evaluation Committee.

The NAO assessment was carried out at the request of the Opposition MPs on the Public Accounts Committee. They had quoted a Times of Malta report saying a decision by the Evaluation Committee was overturned by the minister.

Dr Cardona had publicly declared he had revised the evaluation criteria decided on in the selection process and changed the legal firm chosen by the Evaluation Committee.

It was further reported that the minister, aware that he could not effect such changes, requested the Ministry for Finance to sanction the change through the approval of a direct order.

The committee’s failure to propose and use comprehensive criteria other than price was deemed as a shortcoming

In its investigation, the National Audit Office said it identified various shortcomings. The Evaluation Committee had not been formally appointed by the ministry, nor was it furnished with clearly defined terms of reference. This created a sense of ambiguity that manifested itself at various stages throughout the process to select the legal firm, the audit office said.

It commended the ministry’s initial endeavours at designing a selection process that was open and transparent, most notably by trying to widen eligibility by removing past experience of privatisation processes as a requirement. Such efforts, if seen through, would have served to promote good governance.

However, the removal of past experience then created the need to establish another mechanism to assess the interested legal firms’ quality. The ministry’s failure to provide adequate guidance regarding evaluation criteria, despite the committee’s numerous attempts at obtaining this assistance, contributed to the difficulties that later surfaced. This guidance was critical in view of the eligibility criteria changes.

On the other hand, the committee’s failure to propose and use comprehensive criteria other than price was a shortcoming. The evaluation based on price alone resulted in an incomplete analysis of the offers received.

As a result, the ranking done by committee was not deemed acceptable by the ministry and a re-ranking process was carried out by the minister and parliamentary secretary.

The NAO said the re-ranking “detracted from the overall level of transparency”.

It was also impossible for the NAO to establish a clear understanding of the re-ranking according to the documentation provided.

The ministry, it added, had to resort to placing a direct order because no advertisement in the Government Gazette had been placed with respect to the request for legal services.

Last night the ministry welcomed the report’s conclusions, which praised it for having tried to make the selection process more transparent by widening the criteria beyond price, thus promoting good governance. Indeed, the legal firm chosen had no links to Labour, the ministry added.

However, it totally agreeed with the NAO that certain aspects could be improved.