Evarist Bartolo | Sunday, 19 July 2009

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‘Normal’ for Gatt, corruption for others

On the 18 February 2005, Enemalta Corporation placed an advert in local newspapers to request “information from interested parties to hold pre-tender meetings for the purpose of discussing its plans for the extension of the Delimara Power Station.”
Enemalta also informed invited “prospective tenderers …to individual single-day meetings” at its offices during the month of March 2005. Years before this public announcement appeared in the local newspapers, Joseph Mizzi, who worked at Enemalta for 24 years and held the post of a chief draughtsman before leaving in 1989 was already looking for overseas companies to involve them in this tender.
In the morning of Wednesday, 20 August, 2003 he contacted Markus Zeier of German company MAN B&W Ltd telling him under the heading ‘HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL’ “We would like to know your firm interest in the Design, Manufacture, Supply, Instal, Test and Commission of a Diesel Powered Generator CCPP in the range of 15MW Block on a turnkey basis.”
By the beginning of January 2005, at least two months before Enemalta went public to request information from companies interested in tendering for the extension of the Delimara Power Station, Joseph Mizzi was already in touch with Danish company BWSC providing it with information he obtained confidentially and unofficially from the contacts he had built over the years at Enemalta.
He insisted with BWSC that he was to be their exclusive contact in Malta. BWSC agreed to this as they were very satisfied with the information and the contacts that Mizzi was obtaining for them to secure the new power station contract. BWSC eliminated all other persons, both Danish and Maltese, from the field to allow Mizzi to represent their interests in Malta and use his network of contacts within Enemata and local politics to their benefit.
Mizzi informed Martin Kok Jensen of BWSC to keep Bent Iversen out of their efforts to obtain the contract: “We do not need to meet Bent anymore, last time I did was on 10 February (2005) and you are aware of this. 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!”
Mizzi informed Jensen that Iversen “Your Danish friend was here again yesterday on his own, this should raise lots of doubts.” On 21st March 2005 in the afternoon Jensen congratulated Mizzi: “Very, very interesting Joseph. Good to have the right intelligence working in 5th gear.”
In the weeks before the official meeting between Enemalta Corporation and BWSC on 29 March 2005, Joseph Mizzi was busy using his contacts within Enemalta to obtain information to be used to the advantage of BWSC. He was also asking BWSC to give him information that he would use to influence Enemalta what to ask for in their tender and to ensure that Enemalta would ask for equipment that BWSC would be in a position to supply. In the morning of 14 March 2005 Mizzi told Jensen “Before I go to the meeting later on this week I need some ammunition to arm myself.”
Thirteen days before the meeting Mizzi tells Jensen: “Thank you for your information which I discussed with third party and the following is some information I want to relay to you before the meeting of 29 March.”
Mizzi then went on to give him technical specifications and financial requirements that Enemalta were to include in their tender. At first BWSC asked Mizzi to set up an official meeting with Enemalta for the 22 March 2005. But then they told him to shift the meeting to the 30 March: “At that time we will hopefully also have a clear picture of how our competitors have been acting.” More than once Mizzi boasted with BWSC about his good intelligence network within Enemalta.
Minister Austin Gatt sees nothing wrong in these unofficial meetings and network of contacts used by Mizzi to put BSWC in pole position to win the tender of the new power station at Delimara. He has tried to dismiss them as “normal”. If these unofficial meetings were normal and there is nothing irregular about them, can Minister Gatt publish the minutes of these meetings? Minutes have been kept of all the official meetings between the different tenderers and Enemalta and such official meetings are normal. But are the unofficial meetings and confidential contacts used by Mizzi to obtain the tender for BWSC normal and acceptable?
The Center for International Private Enterprise based in Washington explains how the kind of unofficial meetings held by Mizzi through his network of contacts influences the procurement planning and budgeting phase: “The procurement requirements could also be written to favor or disfavor particular suppliers. In the procurement solicitation phase, the main tasks are compiling the request for proposals or tender documents and conducting the evaluation. During this phase it is also possible that advance information could be provided to a particular favored supplier.”
Addressing a seminar on ‘How to fight corruption effectively in public procurement’ Susanne Szymanski, Policy Analyst Investment Compact Private Sector Division Directorate for Financial and Enterprise Affairs Paris, France 12 November 2007 said that “Collusion is frequent during the phases of procurement planning and document preparation, when investigations are most difficult. Exchanges between project designers and intermediaries can lead to the disclosure of confidential information … the manipulation of terms of reference and technical specifications to favour a particular supplier … the advance release of bid information and the absence of a whistleblower system.”

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