On Tuesday, 22 September 2009, Minister Austin Gatt said that he was looking forward to the report by the Auditor General on the investigation of the contract awarded to Danish company BWSC to build an extension to the Delimara Power Station. He said that he was sure this investigation would show that there was nothing wrong with this contract.
Seven months later, Gatt is being forced to eat those words, as the Auditor General’s investigation has identified many serious irregularities and shortcomings. Regarding the allegations made by the Labour Opposition, the Auditor General concluded: “these allegations raise serious doubts and concerns, more so in those cases where insufficient explanations were given during the course of the inquiry which could dispel such concerns. Indeed, it was felt that the evidence given by certain stakeholders, especially Mr Joseph Mizzi who was summoned by the National Audit Office on three separate occasions, tended to be somewhat evasive, sometimes bordering on non-collaboration, very often citing lack of memory when confronted with certain direct questions.”
The Auditor General refers to certain stakeholders who did not collaborate during the investigation but names only Joseph Mizzi. A careful analysis of the report shows that other stakeholders who did not collaborate include BWSC and Enemalta officials. BWSC came to Malta at the end of November 2009 and even when presented with emails between them and Mizzi that point to unethical business behaviour simply said that they were “not aware of them.”
Enemalta officials were also evasive or gave contradictory information. Chairman Alex Tranter, asked by the Auditor on 5 October 2009 to investigate “allegations made by the media that confidential information has been leaked by Enemalta Corporation’s employees prior to the issue of the tender and during the adjudication phase” answered just three days later “that the Corporation has found no evidence that such allegations are true.” As if in three days any serious investigations could have been carried out, especially if they were carried out by the Chairman and other top Enemalta officials who, according to the Auditor General, behaved unethically during the different phases of the process leading to the award of the contract to BWSC.
The National Audit Office does not have the power and the means to unearth corruption. Corrupt businessmen and politicians hide their tracks well and the only way to catch them is either if one of them spills the beans and gives the game away as criminals do when they fall out with each other; or by hacking into their private and confidential emails or by tapping their phones and by having access to their bank accounts around the world. The Auditor General is not empowered or equipped to carry out this sort of investigation. He is not even allowed to arrest a person under investigation if he develops amnesia like Joseph Mizzi did when he was summoned three times during this investigation. Mizzi was assisted by Dr J.J. Vella, who used to be Enemalta’s legal advisor. Another lawyer in the same office, Dr Grech, is BWSC’s legal advisor. This legal office, GVTH, has worked very closely with Enemalta Corporation. This web of connections does not help transparency, integrity and accountability as it makes it very difficult to establish any demarcation between private and public interest.
Government complicated matters for the Auditor General during this investigation by defending Joseph Mizzi and BWSC, by signing the contract in great haste with BWSC only 13 days after the investigation started. Government allowed the important post of Director of Contracts to be vacant for three crucial months during this tendering process and weakened the necessary oversight. Government has still not passed a Whistleblower Act to protect those who want to disclose corrupt practices. Several Enemalta employees were afraid to speak up in front of their superiors during this investigation so the Auditor could not have face-to-face confrontations to establish the factuality of their confidential evidence.
Then government very dishonestly said that the Auditor General did not request the suspension of the contract. The Auditor General has no power to do so. To behave ethically, government should not have signed the contract with BWSC on 26 May 2009, when the Auditor’s investigations were “still at a very preliminary stage.”
Government wanted to award the contract to BWSC at all costs and did not want to wait for the outcome of the Auditor’s inquiry, especially as the Auditor questions the decision of government to change the law on emissions and that of Enemalta to change the specifications to fit the new emissions, making it possible for BWSC to be awarded the contract. One of the main conclusions of the inquiry is that “the controversy surrounding this tender could have been avoided had the tendering process been stopped and reissued to reflect such change in specifications.”
Government is trying to justify the decision to award the contract to BWSC on the grounds that the electricity produced by its plant will be cheaper than that produced by the other bidders. This does not make sense as government is not even in a position yet to establish the cost of electricity produced by this plant. The report by the Auditor General concludes that government does not know yet how much maintaining this plant and buying spare parts for it is going to cost. Also, government does not know how expensive it is going to be to export the thousands of tons of solid and liquid toxic waste produced by this plant.
A confidential technical report sent on 23 March 2005 by BWSC to its agent Joseph Mizzi to pass on to “another source higher up in the political hierarchy”, tapped to bring about the decision to award the contract to BWSC, shows that the plant chosen for the extension of the Delimara Power Station is unreliable and more expensive to maintain, less efficient and has a shorter life span when compared to other plants. But Enemalta and government went ahead to award the contract to BWSC, offering a plant that, in its own words, “is a bad deal for Malta.”
I have been following the BWSC story for nearly a year now. I have spent hours digging up facts patiently and methodically. I found help from quarters I never expected, such as Danish diplomats and journalists, former UN officials involved in the investigations on the Oil for Food scandal in Iraq at the time when BWSC and Lahmeyer International (appointed as an “independent” technical consultant in this tender) built three power stations together there, World Bank personnel and other persons of integrity, including some local lawyers and university academics and a number of persons working at Enemalta and various government ministries and departments. This story has brought me in contact with the worst and best elements in this country: those who thrive in the prevailing culture of corruption and those who at personal risk are ready to do their bit to combat it. I am grateful to my family for putting up with 11 months of my obsessive quest to unearth as much evidence as possible about this tender. I must thank MaltaToday for being the only local newspaper in English ready to publish my research and articles on the matter. I have written thousands of words on this case. After the publication of the report by the Auditor General, I feel fully vindicated and there is not one single word that I need to take back.
Evarist Bartolo is a Labour MP
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