Polidano Brothers Limited’s bid (‘Polidano Group wins EU-funded contract without meeting tender preconditions’, 17 January 2010) was fully compliant with tender requirements. Contrary to what was published, the accounts submitted by Polidano Brothers Limited for the submarine outfall at ta’ Barkat were signed and certified by a certified public accountant and thus in full conformity with the tender requirements.
Furthermore, the Public Contracts Regulations provide the necessary legal structure for any tenderer, who in any way feels aggrieved or risks being harmed by a decision of the contracting authority, to seek redress. The same regulations also provide for the refund (in whole or in part) of the “prohibitive cost” in the event of a successful appeal.
Polidano Brothers Limited is in no doubt that the “legal specialists” who “raised very serious questions” over the decision of the contracting authority are aware of these provisions and that the Public Contracts Appeals Board, and not this newspaper, is the proper forum where such issues should be raised.
Polidano Brothers Limited concurs with was stated in the article that in some particular cases, applicants were disqualified for minor reasons. In 2009 Polidano Brothers Limited was disqualified from some eight tenders for reasons as trivial as the non signature of a single paper from a tender offer that would run into thousands of pages or for a missing architect’s CV, when the tender would have required the submission of the CVs of six different architects or worse still for the lack of experience of an architect when that same architect would have been in possession of the A&CE warrant and employed with the company for over fifteen years and carried out work under the scrutiny of the very same authority adjudicating him as not having the required experience.
Dr Jesmond Manicaro
Legal advisor,
Polidano Group
Editorial Note:
The Public Contracts Regulations (LN 155/2005) states that evidence of economic standing includes presenting balance sheets “where publication of the balance sheets is required under company law in the country in which the economic operator is established.” MaltaToday correctly pointed out that the final statements of the Polidano companies had not been published at the MFSA, a point that is not disputed by Mr Manicaro.
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