News | Sunday, 12 July 2009

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‘We need to tap a source higher up in the political hierarchy’

REVEALED – The emails between BWSC and the Maltese middleman for the €200m Delimara Power Station tender

Matthew Vella
A private consultant working on behalf of BWSC had informed the Danish firm of the need “to tap another source higher up in the political hierarchy” before the start of the tendering for a €200 million contract for a new turbine at Delimara power station.
MaltaToday can reveal that in an email dated 10 May 2005 – just two months after the pre-tendering process was advertised in the national press in late March – Joseph Mizzi told a BWSC manager of how to go about the tender.
Mizzi, from San Gwann, is a former Enemalta employee who worked at the national energy company for over 25 years.
Attempts to contact Mizzi on his home and mobile numbers proved futile.
Mizzi, representing BWSC’s interest in the tender for the 100MW Delimara extension, guided BWSC sales manager Martin Kok Jensen on the tendering.
In emails seen by MaltaToday, Mizzi was praised by Jensen as “intelligence working in fifth gear”.
As early as March 2005 – weeks before Enemalta advertised the start of the pre-tendering process in the press – Mizzi informed Jensen that “your main competitors are surely Wartsila and MAN B&W as engine manufacturers.”
The emails show that Mizzi was annoyed at the fact that a certain Bent Iversen, acting on behalf of BWSC, came to Malta sometime in February 2005 for an unofficial meeting with Enemalta officials.
Mizzi contacted Jensen to tell him: “He (Bent) went direct to Enemalta with a Maltese agent. I have to find out how he is doing his business, he might be risking and will drag with him some government officials into trouble.”
Another email from Jensen, also dated in March, congratulates Mizzi: “Good to have the right intelligence working in fifth gear.”
The email conversations took place in March.
Enemalta has already claimed that since 2004 the corporation was evaluating the possible use of medium sized diesel engines for a small extension to the Delimara power station. This was later increased to 100MW, but the request for information was published in September 2005.
Enemalta claims that BWSC could not have had any technical details in its hand beforehand, because the request for proposals was published in November 2006.
Investments Minister Austin Gatt has dismissed the contacts between government entities and potential suppliers as an “everyday occurrence”.
Gatt said he did not know the man and had only heard his name in connection with the power station tender recently, referring to the allegations first made public by Labour MP Evarist Bartolo.
Gatt told the press it was not up to him to ask the police to investigate the “crimes” alleged by Bartolo, insisting the prosecution of criminal offences was the prerogative of the “autonomous institutions” responsible for such matters, which “act independently of the wishes of a minister”.
He would not say whether he would be demanding an internal investigation into the allegations.
“If Evarist Bartolo knows more than he has written he should inform the police and if he does not, then it is up to the police to decide what to do with what he has written, one way or the other,” Gatt said.
BWSC was earlier this year awarded the €200 million contract to supply a new 100MW turbine, which will operate on heavy fuel.
The award was followed by a judicial protest from a rival bidder, Israeli firm Ido Hutney/Bateman, whose offer was for a turbine operated by natural gas, which would have been cheaper and a cleaner alternative to the heavy fuel plant.
Bateman says that in May 2008, it had been sent an email by mistake which revealed that the decision to drop its bid had already been taken.
MaltaToday is in possession of this email, sent by an Enemalta employee to senior officials on Thursday 22 May 2008. “I propose that an invitation should be sent tomorrow to BWSC and MAN, which submitted the best two offers for 100MW plant as evaluated so far,” the email reads.
When Bateman drew the corporation’s attention to the fact that it had received this email, and was therefore cognisant of the rejection of its bid, the Israeli company was once again shortlisted, only to later discover that its bid had been rejected at a point when it was no longer possible to appeal.
While no environmental impact assessment was conducted for the new power station extension, government even increased the allowable emission limits for Delimara, by means of a legal notice back in January 2008 – right in the middle of the tender process – which enabled the diesel engine technology to comply with the requirements, in contrast to the original levels on the proper tender document.

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