Evarist Bartolo | Sunday, 28 June 2009

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Is this normal practice?

Last Sunday Enemalta tried to dismiss my article of a fortnight ago without refuting any of the facts I mentioned.
In my article I gave detailed information of how the Danish company BWSC – the selected bidder for the new power station at Delimara – was in pole position when the pre-tendering process started four years ago way back in 2005. For many months before the formal process started, BWSC had intensive and informal contacts with Enemalta top officials.
The contacts were through a Maltese intermediary who cultivated and met top officials at Enemalta who provided him with a lot of inside information that gave BWSC a strategic advantage over other bidders.
Enemalta said that this is normal practice! How can it be considered normal practice when even the persons involved knew very well that they were doing something which they should not do?
For example in February 2005, a certain Bent Iversen had tried to get onto the act and came to Malta and accompanied other Maltese in an unofficial meeting with Enemalta officials. The Maltese intermediary contacted Martin Kok Jensen of BWSC, and very alarmed told him: “He went direct to Enemalta with a Maltese agent. I have to search how he is doing his business, he might be risking and will drag with him some government officials into trouble!” These words are enough to show that these contacts had nothing to do with normal tendering practice!
In the morning of 11th May 2005 the Maltese intermediary contacted Anders Langhorn of BWSC to inform him that “We need to tap another source higher up in the political hierarchy …” and asked him to prepare a technical brief to persuade Enemalta what power generating plant to go for.
The Maltese intermediary took all the necessary steps to get everyone else out of the way to ensure that he strikes the deal for BWSC with Enemalta and win the bid for the new power station. BWSC were very happy with their intermediary and congratulated him on the information he was providing them in the crucial months before the formal pre-tendering process started. They told him: “Good to have the right intelligence working in 5th gear.”
It was this intelligence that secured the deal for BWSC in April 2009 when it was awarded the €200 million contract for the extension of the Delimara power plant. A rival bidder, Israeli company Ido Hutney Projekt/Bateman Energies BV sent a letter to Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi last March complaining that the adjudicating process was flawed and irregular.

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