Your article on superyachts (‘Superyachts: Ministry claims no collusion in Palumbo-Midi Bids’, 7 February 2010) is based on allegations which are totally incorrect and you have already been informed that they are incorrect. Yet you persist in repeating statements which are categorically untrue and therefore against the public interest with the result that they may undermine the efforts being made by the Privatisation Unit, which is continuously trying to ensure that in the public interest the privatisation process is carried out in the best possible manner.
You continue to ignore two fundamental matters.
You continue to ignore the fact that allowing two existing bidders to join in the form of a consortium for the purposes of allowing a single proposal not only is not against the letter and spirit of the conditions laid down in the Request for Proposals under which the bidding process has taken place, but more importantly is specifically and expressly catered for in the Request for Proposals itself. Therefore it is totally out of order for you to imply that this should have led to the disqualification of such bidders and that such a disqualification is laid down in the “conditions”. On the contrary, the “conditions” expressly allow it!
Therefore we can assure you that there was no dubious practice whatsoever. The dubious part of all of this is why there is an erroneous insistence that at any stage there was a ‘preferred bidder’ for the superyacht facility. Once again we reiterate that in the process of the superyacht facility we never declared a ‘preferred bidder’. This is something we normally inform the bidders about and also announce publicly.
In the re-bidding process for the ship repair facility at Cospicua exactly the same situation prevailed. The terms of the Request for Proposals were identical to those of the superyacht Request for Proposals. In that case, two bidders joined forces and re-submitted a bid. In spite of this the bidders that joined forces did not have the best offer and the best offer was made by the bidder who did not join forces with anyone.
You also appear to continue to ignore the fact that the Privatisation Unit is bound to follow the terms of the Request of Proposals which document does not provide for the mechanism to request a best and final offer. This too was made clear to you and yet you keep on questioning why this was not done.
Keith Zahra
Communications coordinator,
Ministry of Finance
Editorial Note: The finance ministry should back up its answer by disclosing the Request for Proposals and explain how it can allow a joint bid between two competing bidders to take place in the middle of a bidding process. This is in itself prima facie anti-competitive and brings into question the Privatisation Unit’s sagacity in allowing such a joint bid when the bidding process had already commenced and two other bidders were shortlisted.
MaltaToday also puts it to the ministry that the PU was obliged to approach shortlisted bidders in order to seek an improved offer. This it did not do: instead it stopped the process and asked all five initial bidders to resubmit their offers, giving the opportunity for two of these bidders to submit a joint bid. The finance ministry should endeavour to answer how this was possible in both the superyacht and ship repair processes.
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