News • January 04 2004

Simed still hoping for an investigation

Julian Manduca

Dutch company Simed’s area manager Ferry Dubbers told MaltaToday that he expected his company to be joined by others in insisting on an investigation into the award of the Lm25 million tender for medical equipment. Asked if Simed is insisting on an investigation into the matter Dubbers said: "I believe we will not be the only ones that will be insisting on an investigation, considering the news coverage in the media this morning (yesterday)."
Asked whether Simed was still hoping to be awarded the tender after Dr Fenech had indicated this was not possible, Dubbers told MaltaToday: "What Dr Fenech meant to say, is that there are no legal possibilities left other than claiming damages in a civil court, but this will not bring us the project. However, what we still hope to achieve is for the government of Malta to revise its decision to award the contract to INSO."
Up until a few days ago the tender for the medical equipment to be supplied to the new Mater Dei hospital seemed destined for Simed but, in what seemed like a quick change of fortunes, it was decided to award the tender to the Italian company INSO. INSO is the company that was originally awarded the tender, but an appeals board had decided the Foundation of Medical Services (FMS) should discard INSO’s bid and obtain clarifications from Simed in what was interpreted as a sign that Simed would be awarded the tender.
Following that decision, minister Dalli has claimed that there was an acceptable clarification process, and Simed claim the contrary.
Simed has claimed that INSO was allowed special treatment including the use of the Director of Contracts office, phone and fax made available to INSO specialists for several weeks, and paid Euro 30,000 to technical consultant SECTA to come to Malta and insist INSO bring their offer up to an acceptable level. Simed has claimed that SECTA’s involvement was that an "illegal and very unprofessional re-evaluation exercise." These accusations have never been replied to.
On its part, Minister Dalli and the FMS are insisting that Simed’s bid is not up to acceptable levels and claimed among other things that 262 items had been left out of the bid without being clarified. It is being claimed by the Advisory Board to the FMS that Simed's response was not substantially responsive on the following items: cost of maintenance and spare parts; annual running costs and consumables.
When MaltaToday contacted Simed’s area manager Ferry Dubbers who was in Malta a few days ago, Dubbers clarified that FMS refused to be specific as to which areas needed clarification. Dubbers has indicated that other clarifications were, in fact, made available but "it is clear that FMS had not made these documents available to SECTA (the consultants examining the tender) or at least these documents were not evaluated by SECTA.
As regards non-compliance on maintenance and annual running costs and consumables, Dubbers told MaltaToday: "Simed provided clarifications on all these points. With regards to the cost of maintenance and spare parts, legal consultants Muscat Azzopardi declared Simed's clarification to be sufficiently responsive. Although auditors Grant Thornton "advises FMS to seek further clarification from Simed on this point" as well as on the matter of the consumables, but despite one full month having passed until the meeting on December 26 and despite our letter to FMS, dated December 5, asking whether our clarifications were clear, FMS did not ask for further clarifications."
While both minister Dalli and the Director of contracts continue to claim that INSO’s offer was cheapest Dubbers questions why no reply has been given to Simed’s claim and calculations that show that INSO’s offer is in fact the most expensive – anything between 7 and 14 million Euro more. On the other hand financial experts Grant Thornton have produced figures showing INSO’s bid to be at more than 10 million Euro cheaper than Simed’s.
The minister and the Medical Equipment Advisory Board to the FMS continue to ignore Simed’s claim that INSO’s bid should have been disqualified. Simed have claimed that INSO’s bid was modified after the tender deadline, and that INSO had access to a new list of suppliers in the clarification exercise, both of which should lead to automatic disqualification, and neither the minister nor the Director of Contracts have clarified that point.
The decision to award INSO the tender came as a shock to Simed, who were still expecting to be consulted for further clarifications and did not consider the process closed. The Contracts Committee, on its part, has explained that one of the reasons for taking a decision on the tender late last month was that: "it is not in the public interest to delay any further the award of this contract."