Bids sent to the fuel procurement committee in the period between the expiration of the deadline and the time offers were accessed through a password-protected e-mail would still be accepted, Enemalta’s CEO chief told Parliament yesterday
Louis Giordimaina was testifying before the Public Accounts Committee which is probing shortcomings flagged by the Auditor General in his report about Enemalta’s fuel procurement between 2008 and 2011.
Mr Giordimaina was appointed CEO last May after serving as non-executive chairman since November 2011.
It has transpired that between 2008 and 2011 a total of 31 out of 153 bids had been received late and nine of them were even successful.
PN deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami asked Mr Giordimaina to explain in detail the procedure adopted following the introduction of the password-protected e-mail at the start of 2011.
Mr Giordimaina explained they would not be aware of the bids until they had been granted access to the e-mail by Mita.
Probed about the possibility of late bids, he said the fuel procurement committee allowed them to consider bids received between the deadline and the moment the bids were accessed. There would not have been any “contamination” of bids.
To the Auditor General this left much to be desired because one “could not shift the goalposts” by extending the deadline.
Dr Fenech Adami asked the Auditor to go through the late bids mentioned in the previous sitting and verify whether any of them had been received in the time gap indicated. He also asked him to include all the bids received between January and end October this year.
Labour MP Luciano Busuttil interjected saying the Auditor should also compare the security procedure being followed now with that in force between 2008 and 2011.
Mr Giordimaina admitted that it was only through the Auditor’s report that he became aware that Enemalta had received fuel with high sulphur content in September 2011. He said he had not been briefed about this when he took over as chairman.
The controversial BWSC plant issue was also raised yesterday with committee chairman Jason Azzopardi asking Mr Giordimaina to quantify the savings in fuel costs thanks to the efficient plant.
Mr Giordimaina initially said this amounted to some €12 million a year but later retracted his statement, when confronted with information given in Parliament in May that the figure he mentioned applied to the savings in the first quarter of this year only. Mr Giordimaina said he would look further into the matter.
Justice Parliamentary Secretary Owen Bonnici said he had been informed about eight ways to hack an e-mail account. He asked the Auditor to verify whether the password-protected e-mail could have been accessed in such a way.
The PAC meets again on Monday evening.