An appeal against the award of a €600m waste-to energy plant is simply a “kitchen sink” attempt to put spokes in the wheels of the process by a bidder that knows it didn’t submit the best bid, Wasteserv has said.
Wasteserv was responding to an appeal filed by Kanadevia, the company formerly known as Hitachi, who last month argued that the award of the contract should be struck down.
In its appeal, Kanadevia said the tendering process was prejudiced by a Wasteserv press release referring to the company as the “losing consortium” from the previous, scrapped adjudication process.
The company also argued that Wasteserv was wrong to only re-evaluate the latter stage of the tendering process, rather than restart the procurement process from scratch.
It added that international consultants COWI A/S shouldn't have featured in the re-evaluation, given their involvement in the first adjudication process.
Kanadevia know they didn’t submit the best bid: Wasteserv
Wasteserv rebutted these claims in a submission sent to the Public Contracts Review Board (PCRB) on Tuesday, accusing Kanadevia of throwing “the proverbial kitchen sink” at the case in the hope of cancelling the process altogether.
“Kanadevia’s beef with the Competitive Negotiation does not concern the evaluation of its bid,” Wasteserv said, and the appeal “does not say that it should have been awarded a higher store”.
Ultimately, Wasteserv argues, Kanadevia is essentially admitting that it had not submitted the best bid, and “is in fact not after winning the Competitive Negotiation on its own steam”.
“This appeal betrays clearly Kanadevia’s knowledge that its offer was not the best price quality offer,” Wasteserv said.
Accusing Kanadevia of “excessive language and mud-slinging” in their appeal, Wasteserv brushed aside the suggestion that it had prejudiced the process by referring to the company as the “losing consortium” in a press release, saying that this was factually correct at the time.
Wasteserv also accused Kanadavia of attempting to “misconstrue” the court’s decision to re-evaluate bids, saying that it had “correctly interpreted and applied the appeal judgment”.
Second evaluation board reached same conclusion as first
Wasteserv’s submission is the latest in a lengthy tit-for-tat that has stalled plans for an incinerator that is believed to be key to Malta’s green energy targets.
The project, first launched in 2017, was awarded by tender to a consortium composed of French company Paprec and local contractors Bonnici Bros in October 2023, after their €600m bid was deemed to be the cheapest of three bids submitted.
But fellow bidders Hitachi, who had submitted a €781m bid of their own objected to the award, eventually taking the matter to all the way to Malta’s courts who ordered the bids to be re-evaluated.
Last month a new evaluation board reached the same conclusion as the first, once again awarding the contract to the Paprec-Bonnici Bros consortium, prompting Hitachi (who have since renamed themselves Kanadeva) to lodge a new appeal.
The matter is now in the hands of the PCRB to determine whether or not to accept Kanadevia’s appeal.