Mizzi ‘took it upon himself’ to eliminate consortium from bidding process – witness

Paul Cardona, star witness in the ongoing case involving allegations of bribery during the privatisation of the shipyards' Superyachts Facility, revealed in court that Mimcol CEO Mario Mizzi had pressured British expert Sue Hall to reduce the marks given to the SYC consortium: which in the first round had been awarded 71 marks.

Mario Mizzi was a member of the Evaluation Committee of the Privatisation Unit which judged the incoming bids for the privatisation of the Superyachts facilities.

Cardona - who held 5% of shares in SYC - also said that Mizzi had told him: "if you take care of me, I am in a position to help you".

Cardona informed the consortium about Mizzi's offer but the consortium partners refused to budge to such pressures.

Mizzi is facing criminal charges for seeking favours to be advantaged in the privatisation of the super yachts facility tender. The Superyachts Facility tender was awarded to Palumbo Malta Superyachts Limited for 30 years, and the global amount to be paid by Palumbo reaches €29.4 million.

In his testimony, Cardona also explained how the privatisation unit headed by Mizzi had expressed reservations about SYC's foreign partners, Couach. The unit had asked SYC to clarify the legal and financial position of their foreign partners.

Couach had fallen into receivership because they were faced by a multi-million euro judgement against them, and were taken over by CMC.

Cardona noted that after all the legal and financial issues regarding Couach were cleared, Mizzi pressured Sue Hall to reduce the mark awarded to SYC Cardona said that this was allegedly done via e-mails.

The mark rewarded to SYC, after having cleared all doubts about its foreign partner, was reduced from 71 to 50. Cardona added that according to the evidence given by Assistant Commissioner Cassar and the Chairman of the PU, when Sue Hall reduced the mark down to 50%, Mario Mizzi asked to have SYC's mark reduced below 50 as otherwise SYC would still have to be considered.

From the evidence produced in court, it seems that Mizzi only pressured Hall to downgrade SYC below 50 and put them out of the running, once it was evident that SYC's foreign partners had resolved their legal and financial problems.

Cardona also noted that a member of the MIMCOL staff, Antoinette Borg, sent further emails to Hall inviting her to settle on a definite decision regarding SYC. He said that Hall pointed out that she had been tough in her assessment in one of her e-mails, and even stressed that SYC hardly demonstrate technical competence. Yet Hall gave SYC a full 71% after the first meeting, even though she said that she was preoccupied about the financial situation of Couach.

The concerns raised by the privatisation unit about the SYC bid were of a technical nature. However Cardona explained that none of members of the adjudication board were technical experts so they were in no position to comment on the technical validity of SYC's offer and even less order their technical expert to reduce the marks.

Cardona alleged that from the evidence given by Assistant Commissioner Michael Cassar and the Chairman of the Privatisation Unit, Mizzi insisted with Hall that SYC should be eliminated. 

He said that Hall seemed to have been reluctant to do this as first she reduced the marks from 71 to 50% and then she had to be pushed further by the MIMCOL officials; Mizzi and Antoinette Borg to further reduce the mark from 71% down to 48% and eliminate SYC. 

Cardona explained that this was done even though nothing had changed in the operation of the French partners. All that happened was that Couach Group went into receivership and the French Courts awarded all assets, business, and book of business to Chantier Naval Couach.  

SYC had presented all documents to confirm that CNC will continue with the agreement with SYC and all documents were presented to the Privatisation Unit. During the meeting in August 2009, between the Privatisation Unit, the SYC Partners and the President and Lawyer of CNC, it was confirmed that all legal questions had been answered and this was confirmed by Ann Fenech, legal council to the Privatisation Unit, to the Chainman in front of all present. 

Cardona added that at that moment Mizzi was heard telling the Chairman, "we can now continue to deal with these."

In his evidence, Cardona stressed that Mizzi took it upon himself to attack the credibility of the SYC proposal and requested Hall to reduce the mark.

Cardona also asked why Hall reduced the technical mark when the technical content was unchanged and said that if anything the technical mark should have been increased because the problems as indicated by Hall had now been cleared up.

However, according to the prior evidence given by Assistant Commissioner Cassar and the Privatisation Unit Chairman, Mizzi took it upon himself to have SYC eliminated from the bid to give the other bidders the Malta Superyacht Facility.

In his evidence, Cardona pointed out that the request for proposal issued by the government and the PU clearly stated that once the interested parties passed the basic criteria as required by the PU, then the most important criteria was the amount of money offered up front.

Cardona also said that SYC offered the government €5.1 million and the PU, following Mizzi's continued intervention to have SYC eliminated, proposed to the government that it should accept an offer from the Melita/Astellieros offer of €1.9 million.

In fact, as Cardona stated in his evidence, the recommendation of the PU was not accepted by the government. This was the first time that the Government turned down the recommendations given by the PU.

In his evidence, Cardona added that the PU made it very clear that whoever won the Shipyard contract must have a very strong foreign partner and were giving the utmost importance on this partner. 

Cardona explained that in the dealings with the PU and during other meetings, both the Chairman and Mario Mizzi, told the foreign partners that they considered them the most important part of the deal and hardly gave any importance to the Maltese partners who, after all, are major industrialists and players in their field in Malta.

He also added that this was the complete opposite of what happened with the Manoel Island Yacht Yard privatisation. Cardona said that this yard was contested by at least three consortiums. SYC had Rodriguez Group as Partners, while another consortium made up of Maltese businessmen had Azimut as their partners.

Both consortiums included big yacht builders and important players in the yachting industry. However, in this instance, it seems that the PU did not deem foreign partners to be important when awarding the contract for the Manoel Island Yacht Yard.

In 2010, the Manoel Island Yacht Yard was awarded to a group of local businessmen who had no experience in the yachting industry, apart from Victor Bezzina, who owns the Bezzina Ship Repair Yard, which yard completes with the Manoel Island Yacht Yard.

The consortium which won the bid is made up of Mizzi Group, Albert Mizzi (Midi Project), current Transport Malta chairman Mark Portelli, Bianchi Group, Paul Hili and Victor Bezzina.