Those responsible for tampering of government tenders should take responsibility, says PN
The Nationalist Party on Friday called for those who are responsible for the annulment of a €600 million tender for an incinerator to take the blame.Speaking about the situation surrounding that government tender, Nationalist MP Rebekah Borg sai
The Nationalist Party on Friday called for those who are responsible for the annulment of a €600 million tender for an incinerator to take the blame.
Speaking about the situation surrounding that government tender, Nationalist MP Rebekah Borg said that following a lot of delay, the Labour government published a tender for an incinerator to be constructed in Maghtab.
She said that this project was intended to cost €600 million, but when the time came to choose the company that would take on this project, members of the boards had a conflict of interest.
She said that the court had said that there were people who were not impartial or independent serving on the boards dealing with the tender. “So we ask, who put these people there?” She questioned, “Was it Miriam Dalli, was it Clyde Caruana? Who put these people with a conflict of interest on the boards?”
The PN MP remarked that the Court of Appeal’s sentence had been decided a week ago, but that absolutely nothing has been said since then. She added that in fact, Wasteserv had said that they were not responsible. “So who is responsible?” She asked again. “Who appointed these people who had a conflict of interest and resulted in a €600 million tender failing?”
Borg said that this is not the first time that a tender has failed in the waste sector. “This incompetence has been ongoing for years,” she remarked. She said that we have seen, through things such as the Vitals’ inquiry, that the government’s track record speaks for itself.
She said that after the PL was elected to government, it said that the 70,000 tonne incinerator that the PN had planned was not suitable for Malta due to environmental reasons.
Borg said that the PN had planned for this incinerator to be completed by the year 2022, but this was not done. By 2018, after the waste problem had continued to get worse, Prime Minister Robert Abela said that it was time for Malta to have an incinerator, and that the incinerator would have to be 190,000 tonnes due to the increase in Malta’s population.
She continued that in 2023, the Prime Minister had again said that Malta would have an incinerator through which the waste management issue would be faced. She said that had the PN’s plan for an incinerator been enacted, Malta would have had a functioning incinerator for the past two years. “Instead, the PL wanted to get involved and place their people in the relevant boards.”
Borg said that the first tender from 2020 failed because all the bidders had withdrawn due to the government’s incompetence, and that the tender released in 2022 has now been annulled, and so Malta remains without an incinerator again due to the government’s incompetence.
“We are sick of seeing the government placing its people in positions to cater to the interests of the few …The PN has spent years appealing for public funds to be transparent in their administration. These funds are not Robert Abela’s, Miriam Dalli’s, or Clyde Caruana’s. They are the people’s funds.”
PN MP Ryan Callus said that the delay in the provision of a tender will result in organic waste continuing to be dumped in landfills.
He said that the PL government threw away the plans which were already set in place by a PN government, and now one tender after another has been stopped because of the Labour government’s incompetence. “So now and for many more years, we remain without an incinerator.”
He added that the people do not only suffer this incompetence on an environmental level, but that businesses also suffer. He continued that it is obvious that the government is being ironic when it says that it is businesses friendly. “When you are business friendly, you do not attempt to tamper with the tender process,” he commented.
“When you are business friendly,” Callus continued, “you do not live in an atmosphere where industries and businessmen tell us that they do not want to waste their time and their workers’ time to bid for a tender which they know is tampered with.”
Callus said that the only hope remaining in the country are the courts, as the government is no longer capable of being serious or competent and allowing for processes like this to be truly transparent.
“What has happened throughout the years has resulted in a mentality, unfortunately, that serious companies stay far away from bidding for government tenders … So what does this result in? Serious companies stray from bidding meaning that we end up with a level of projects and a quality of work that is not the best quality that our industries can offer.”
The PN MP concluded by saying that as an alternative government, the PN offers businesses a level playing field where the best proposals would win when tenders are called. He added that the environment would also benefit, as the result of what is being seen today is of years wasted where waste, “after they told us to freeze it”, would still end up being dumped in Maghtab.
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