The company engaged by Enemalta to perform a technical evaluation of bids for the Delimara power station extension had offered its services when the bids were still classified as confidential, the Auditor General's investigation has revealed.
Lahmeyer International's evaluation eventually proved instrumental in allowing the bid by contract winner BWSC, which should have been disqualified under the original tender specifications, to stay in the running.
The company, blacklisted by the World Bank, had approached Enemalta in April 2008 to carry out a technical analysis of the four bids, barely a month after the offers had been opened by the corporation. At that stage the offers were not public.
Lahmeyer's interest in the bidding process is particularly significant since the Maltese agent for the eventual winner, Danish company BWSC, Joseph Mizzi, used to work with them until December 2007.
Enemalta initially turned down the unsolicited request but a month later issued a direct order and engaged Lahmeyer to carry out a technical analysis of the bids. At first the company was asked to analyse two bids, one belonging to the eventual winner BWSC, which quoted prototype technology that did not conform to tender specifications.
However, the company was later asked to evaluate all bids submitted including the gas-run alternative proposed by Bateman.
The Auditor General said that although the Lahmeyer report had ranked BWSC's bid in third place, it was "instrumental" for Enemalta to allow bidders with "untried" technologies to stay in the running for the Delimara power station extension.
BWSC had submitted a prototype combination of diesel engines and pollution control mechanisms, which had not been tried or tested anywhere else.
Eventually, Lahmeyer evaluated the untried-technology bids positively based on "theoretical assumptions" on emissions data supplied by the bidders.
The Auditor General said Enemalta had departed from the original tender document specifications when it did not disqualify the prototype diesel engine bids.
The specifications stipulated the requirement for "tried and tested solutions that were backed up by references to international sites operating the same equipment", which was not the case for BWSC.
"It is significant to note that none of the references submitted by either MAN or BWSC indicate a complete system of engine, de-NOx, de-SOx and dust removal equipment. This led to a situation whereby, while the individual elements were state of the art and well tried and tested in other combinations, the combination of all three elements of emission abatement equipment and the diesel engines as a whole was not," the report said.
In scathing remarks, the Auditor General said Enemalta's behaviour on this "crucial issue" caused concern as to whether the management of the tendering process "could be considered as best practice".
"No one can deny that Lahmeyer International's comments were instrumental in Enemalta's decision to accept to consider bidders that had quoted prototype combinations rather than complying with the original tender clauses," the Auditor said.
He also had strong words for Enemalta's decision to engage Lahmeyer when the company was blacklisted by the World Bank for corrupt practices overseas, the fact that it had been previously engaged in a joint project with BWSC, and the agent of the company which eventually won the tender had also worked as Lahmeyer's agent up to 2007.
The Auditor General's report was presented to Parliament on Monday after a lengthy and thorough investigation into the multi-million power station extension.
Although he found no hard evidence of corruption as alleged by the Opposition, the Auditor remarked that various stakeholders including Mr Mizzi did not collaborate fully with the investigation. Apart from this, the Auditor found serious shortcomings in the tender process.
(The Times)