The chairman of the committee that chose a blacklisted company as a consultant on the controversial Delimara power station extension yesterday admitted he made a mistake not to vet the firm's track record.
David Spiteri Gingell, one of the most respected government consultants, said on Bondiplus TV chat show last night he would decide differently if he could turn the clock back.
"I admit to making a mistake, as a committee (by choosing Lahmeyer International) because I assumed that, since the Malta Resources Authority had worked with them in the past, they had already been vetted," he said.
As he spoke, Labour MP Leo Brincat interjected to point out that a simple Google search of Lahmeyer's name would have flagged the company's dodgy past, to which Mr Gingell said: "I admit, I made a mistake. Can I do more than that? If I could turn the clock back I would decide differently".
At that point, Mr Brincat said he had no problem accepting the statement, having earlier declared he respected Mr Spiteri Gingell, who also acted as a consultant under Labour.
The candid statement, in fact, was the first instance of responsibility shouldering in a process that led to the selection of Danish company BWSC as the supplier of an extension to the Delimara power plant. In a report, the Auditor General noted a number of shortcomings in the way the contract was awarded.
He criticised the choice of Lahmeyer as an independent consultant because it was blacklisted by the World Bank and had been engaged in a joint project with BWSC even if Lahmeyer was supposed to have drawn up an independent analysis on the same bidder.
The Auditor also noted that Joseph Mizzi, BWSC's agent in Malta, had served as Lahmeyer's agent up to 2007.
Besides the shortcomings, the choice of BWSC has been criticised severely on the basis that its technology is untested and that the plant's use of heavy fuel oil makes it among the most polluting of the choices on offer.
However, during yesterday's show, Mr Spiteri Gingell insisted that the plant was not a prototype because there was a similar one in South Korea. The only difference, he said, was that while South Korea disposed of the sludge the plant produced directly into the sea, Malta would ship it in containers. He said he had told the Auditor General about this but it was never included in the final report.
The €210 million extension is up for consideration by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority on Thursday.