There appears to be no end to the story over the award of the contract to a Danish company for the extension of the power station at Delimara. Following the furore over the outcome of the Auditor General’s report on the contract, the European Commission is now saying that changes to the law raising emission thresholds towards the end of the tendering process could have discriminated in favour of bidders with diesel engine proposals.

This is a serious accusation to which the people would have expected the government to give, publicly, an immediate response. But, not unsurprisingly, given the way it has tackled criticism in and out of Parliament on how it handled the contract, the government has chosen to isolate itself from the mainstream of public opinion, refusing to publish its reaction. In a lame argument, reflecting a weak stand, it merely said it was established practice that correspondence was not published before the end of the process.

Now, considering the size of the contract and the political controversy it set off, the least the government is expected to do is to inform the people of all the details of the issue. Talk of government procedure about how things ought to be done will not remove the impression that the government is simply playing for time in the hope that the matter will be forgotten as time goes by. It will not. Therefore, the best thing for it to do is to go public and let the people judge for themselves.

In the letter to the government, European Commission vice-president Michel Barnier expressed serious concerns about the tendering process, particularly changes to a legal notice that regulated emission levels. The amendments increased the limit values for diesel powered plants, which, in turn, brought about a change in the technical specifications of the tendering document. The Commission said the change in technical specifications could constitute a breach of equality and non-discrimination rules and possibly violated various other directives. And, as if to hammer the point home, the Commission also remarked that the changes in the legal notice had nothing to do with the correct transposition of EU legislation, as the government had claimed.

There is another sticking point. According to the Commission, the failed bidders were not informed in time of the award of the tender, effectively denying them the right to appeal within the stipulated timeframe. All this suggests that a fine mess was made of the whole matter. The National Audit Office had questioned the decision by Enemalta and the Director of Contracts to go ahead with the tender once the original tender specifications referring to emission levels were changed. In fact, quite correctly, the NAO said that, with hindsight, it was felt that much of the controversy surrounding the tender could have been avoided had the tendering process been stopped and re-issued to reflect the change in specifications. This would have been the wiser step to take in the circumstances.

Although the Auditor General had found no hard evidence of corruption, he found various cases of administrative shortcomings. He had also remarked on the undue haste with which the agreement had been signed and complained of lack of cooperation from “certain stakeholders” who claimed they could not recall certain events.

The latest twist to the story adds greater concern over the contract and puts the government in further bad light, more so with its ill-advised stand of refusing to publish its replies.