A potential major scandal is in the making and to the tune of +€400 million of public funds (our taxes) involving the Magħtab incinerator. This is probably one of the biggest contracts ever issued by the Maltese government. Our landfills have reached maximum capacity, so the incinerator and land reclamation are looking like our future, regrettably, to mitigate our current waste crisis (the alternative to freezing your rubbish).
It is even more worrying when sources allege that two foreign consortia with major expertise in the field backed out of the procurement process for the +€400 million tender due to maladministration. The tender involves the construction of the facility and, upon completion, the administration and supervision of the same facility for 20 years.
The Department of Contracts, the contracting authority in this case, “erroneously” leaked sensitive information containing the indicative prices of four of the five bidders shortlisted during the bidding process for the +€400 million project. This leak showed a foreign consortium with expertise in the sector offering the lowest price: €395 million compared to the consortium in which a particular major Maltese company holds a 40 per cent stake, which made the offer of €617 million.
An error of this kind surely mustn’t be a coincidence. This is because this particular negotiation procedure used for this contract, known as the ‘Competitive Procedure with Negotiation’, is not as straightforward as publishing a call and various competitors applying (the so-called ‘Open Procedure’).
With the former procedure, anyone may ask to participate but only those who are pre-selected will be invited to submit an initial tender to negotiate.
It is worth mentioning that procuring entities can only use this procedure when negotiations are necessary due to the specific or technical nature of the purchase, such as this incinerator. Once a competitor applies and is selected to take part in negotiation procedures, there are various successive stages in order to reduce the number of tenders to be negotiated, until a final winner is selected.
Therefore, in this case, the Department of Contracts published the bids of the competitors prematurely, potentially giving bidders an advantage in order to assess their strategic position before submitting their final offers.
In this case, the consortium involving a particular Maltese company managed to shave off a couple of million euros from their initial bid, ultimately submitting the lowest bid. It is still not clear whether they have been awarded the contract as of yet.
This incinerator saga has been going on for over a decade- Eve Borg Bonello
However, despite having submitted the lowest bid, it does not necessarily mean that they will be awarded the tender. This is because the award of a contract relies on the best price-quality ratio. In either case, the Department of Contracts is bound to publish an individual report on procedures for the award of contracts. In such a report, the latter authority must reveal the reasons why it was the selected tender.
While the Public Procurement Regulations do not explicitly state that, in such scenario, negotiations should start afresh, it places a general obligation on the contracting authority not to provide information in a discriminatory manner that could give tenderers an advantage over others and not to reveal confidential information communicated by a bidder without its agreement.
However, if it truly were a genuine error, the fruit of incompetence, wouldn’t the government have scrapped the process and started afresh? This has not been the case so far. Is this a coincidence?
Is Malta to expect another Vitals-level scandal and squandering of our taxes?
This worries me, especially since I represent a constituency covered in garbage and infested by rats. Especially as someone committed to helping fight the battle of my generation; climate change, which Malta was the first to put on the map in the United Nations through Ċensu Tabone’s vision, in a country that is ruining this very legacy by prioritising questionable business instead of results and clean air for its children.
This summer saw one crisis after another: rats and rubbish lining streets of tourist areas marketed as luxury spots in our picturesque Mediterranean island, at least that is the description VisitMalta pays influencers to say on TikTok, while we know the reality is, in fact, more on the dystopian side.
This incinerator saga has been going on for over a decade. There has been much mystery, secrecy and lack of public scrutiny surrounding the subject. The probability is that this saga will turn into another expensive and drawn-out legal battle.
May Miriam Dalli and Robert Abela please speak up and give clarity before it’s too late?
Eve Borg Bonello is the Nationalist Party’s spokesperson on climate change.
