Evaluation Committee member of Marina di Valletta had business connections to member of consortia

Julian Bonnici A member of Transport Malta’s Evaluation Committee for the Marina di Valletta project had entered into business with one of the members of the consortia a full year prior to the opening of the bidding process.

Clifton Borg, a senior official at Transport Malta (TM), and Dennis Baldacchino of Tal-Magħtab Construction Ltd, who is a director of Marina di Valletta Ltd, form part of the joint venture along with Charles Ellul of Elbros Ltd. The joint venture, known as Exclusivity Malta Ltd, was chosen as the preferred bidders to re-develop the Marfa Palace into a boutique hotel.

An MFSA receipt given to this newsroom shows that Exclusivity Malta Ltd entered into a joint venture on 2 December 2013, almost a year before the five consortia submitted their bids to Transport Malta for the development of the Marina di Valletta.

The Marina di Valletta consortium consists of local and Italian firms, and Italian marina operator Marina di Varazze srl, as the lead investor, was announced as the winning bid by TM on 26 June 2015, with the marina being launched on 9 October 2014.

Speaking to The Malta Independent on Sunday, Borg said that the request for proposals followed an open and transparent procurement process.

“The evaluation committee consisted of seven members and the preferred bidder had the highest offer among bidders. An appeal was made by one of the bidders and the award to the preferred bidder was reconfirmed by the Appeals Board,” he said.

However, this does not explain how Borg could have even been allowed on the said committee, given the existing conflict of interest.

With regard to the Marfa Palace project, Borg said: “There was no award for the Marfa Palace bid and there is no ongoing business with any of the Marfa project parties.”

Exclusivity Malta Ltd was announced as the preferred bidders in April 2015 by Minister Michael Falzon – who at the time was Parliamentary Secretary for Planning prior to his removal over the Gaffarena Scandal – after an initial expression of interest, which yielded six applicants, was issued in October 2013.

Last month, Planning Minister Ian Borg said that negotiations over the project were in the final stage and the proposal was now being passed to the Board of Governors of the Lands Authority, echoing a similar answer he had given in November, when he said that the valuation of the property was taking place in order to be passed on to the same Board of Governors.