The public cannot understand the criteria on which government land and government tenders are given out. We read that a large piece of land was sold to Minister Jesmond Mugliett for a few hundred liri and yet, on the notice board of the Lands Department we also read how an agricultural room is leased at Lm600 per annum or how a boathouse in Qawra is leased at more than Lm600 per annum. We cannot make heads or tails of how the system works.
Of course, the Commissioner of Lands will argue that everything is according to the rules and regulations and rightly so. But it appears that such rules and regulations are leaning towards the rich and against the poor or the low-income bracket. Let’s face it, one cannot compare the lease of a boathouse or an agricultural room with the sale of the land to Minister Mugliett and yet, if we compare the price for the lease of one and the sale of the other, we do not need to be an estate agent to argue that Zammit made a very good bargain indeed.
I know of cases where the Commissioner of Lands refused to accept the highest bid because he decided it was too low. Why he acted differently in the case of Minister Mugliett I don’t know. Neither do I know how tenders can continue to be published without informing the public that any offer below a certain sum of money will not be accepted. First of all, this condition will put all the bidders on a level playing field and secondly, there will be no waste of time, money and resources for either the Lands Department or the general public.
I applaud the Housing Authority that uses this procedure and tells us from the outset in their tenders that offers below a certain offer will not be accepted. This puts all bidders on the same level playing field and nobody has to devise ways and means to get to know how much the bid is of the present tenderer. If the situation remains status quo, we will continue to make a distinction and to discriminate between the existing tenderers and the prospective bidders in that the former have more information than the latter, and are therefore in a position to bid for less.
We are witnessing this discrimination and this grave injustice in the tenders for lease or for contracts of services. The persons whose contract is bound to expire are in a more advantageous position than the new bidders as they already know what the minimum offer is for such a tender; what is happening is that they go below the minimum in order to secure the winning place. We are noticing this happening many times in the government’s and local councils and government-related application for tenders.
It happened to me personally as well. Some time ago I applied for the services of a lawyer with the Qormi local council but the only person who was able to juggle the offer was the lawyer already holding such a post because he firstly, knew the going rate he was charging the local council and secondly, he could go below such rate in order to clinch the tender with the cheapest offer. This knowledge is something that the other tenderers are not in a position to know and I appeal to all those concerned, including the Department for Local Councils to make it a condition of the tender that the minimum amount or the present fee be including in the tender papers.
Mind you, it is not only Minister Mugliett who benefited from this lack of guidelines that exists with regard to property estimates. Pender Place was government land given as a ‘gift’ for Lm10 million when people who are in the property business tell you that that land is worth Lm25 million. We are all familiar with other major projects which on paper are financed by the private entrepreneur but which ultimately end up being financed by public money because they are sold at a pittance. The Leader of the Opposition was right in arguing that the government should emulate Gasan in the sale of Melita Cable: just as Gasan put his interest first, so should the government.
When taxes strike hard on the citizens, they demand a good return for their money. Nowadays the issue is no longer how much we are spending but whether we can do more with the same amount of money. It is the same with privatization. The public is not against privatization: it is against the lack of transparency that exists in the privatization procedure. We have nobody to challenge the decision of the privatization unit and we feel so helpless in this regard. How an offer is deemed advantageous we do not know, and I must say that many of us had hoped that the EU would bring more transparency.
It is also curious how we are not provided with information as to whether those have been awarded public tenders are complying with the conditions of such tender. Take the case of the sale of Sea Malta: in the award of the tender Grimaldi had to do many things. But did he do them? Can the Minister enlighten us as to whether Grimaldi and all the others who bought our gold are abiding by the conditions of the contract? The role of the privatization unit should not only be to privatize but also to ensure that the commitments entered into by the private entrepreneur are fully complied with.
Take the Maltacom saga on the stretch of land in Qawra said to be worth Lm10 million. This was given to Maltacom as a gift because on one hand, the Minister was under the impression (yes, impression!) that the land was not included in the sale, whereas that land was already Maltacom’s land before it became privatized. And I am told that this was transferred to Maltacom by the Joint Office way back during the two years of Labour administration. Still the issue remains that the government gurus did not discover that the land is an asset of Maltacom and therefore, Lm10 million were given on a silver plate, from our money, to the Dubai sheik.
Had the government been wiser in the disposal of public assets, I am sure that the surcharge on electricity and water rates would have been spared. I am also sure that we would have been less burdened with charges and taxes. So long as such foolishness will not translate itself into more financial burdens on the general public, the public tends to turn a nelson’s eye, but when such foolishness starts to translate itself into more taxes, then the public will open both eyes wide and send the message that it will not tolerate this squandering any longer.
This is why the time for clear guidelines is pressing very hard!