Updated | Questions raised over integrity of bids after NAO flags late submissions

Between 25 February 2008 and 22 December 2011, 31 out of 153 bids submitted to Enemalta missed the deadline submission. Yet, the Fuel Procurement Committee still considered the bids, at times going as far as awarding tenders to late bidders.

The discovery was made by the National Audit Office after parliamentary secretary for justice Owen Bonnici requested information on late submissions.

The NAO investigation found that 31 of the bids, amounting to 20% of the total bids, were late submissions with times varying between a minute and 60 minutes.

Nine of these bids were not only considered but also awarded: six were awarded to BB Energy and three were awarded to Totsa, a subsidiary of Total represented by oil trader George Farrugia.

A further analysis of the NAO information reveals that the absolute majority of bids submitted by BB Energy were done via fax.

The information also shows that BB Energy had a tendency to submit its bids after the deadline: out of the 30 FPC meetings held for the procurement of either fuel oil, diesel, unleaded gasoil, gasoline and Jet A1, BB Energy made 17 late submissions.

Between 2008 and 2011, BB Energy was awarded a total of seven tenders, of which only one bid had been submitted on time. The tender, awarded on 10 August 2011, was for the procurement of unleaded and the only other bidder had been Totsa.

The rest of the six tenders awarded to BB Energy had all missed the submissions deadline, at times by as much as 58 minutes.

The National Audit Office also found two instances where Totsa was awarded the tender in 2008 but no information was available on the date and time the bid was made.

In total, between 2008 and 2011, Totsa was awarded 15 contracts out of the 29 issued by Enemalta.

Live-blog

20:30 PAC adjourned to next Wednesday.

20:19 The Office of the Auditor General presented the Public Accounts Committee with an analysis of bid submission deadlines by fuel suppliers.

31 bids, marking 20% of the total bids, were submitted between a minute and 60 minutes late after the submissions deadline.

Conflicting information was retained on two bids as information on the bid was marked as "late" whereas they were then treated as adjudicated.

Nine of the 31 lates bidders won the tender. Six were awarded to BB Energy and three were awarded to Totsa.

The NAO didn't ask Enemalta for an explanation as the PAC request was to gather the information.

In five instances, the submissions deadline was skipped by between 26 minutes and 58 minutes. In four instances the delay was between two or three minutes.

20:09 Debono was asked to appear, believing that he was an external consultant to the FPC in 2008.

"I was never a consultant," Debono tells the members.

Debono's appearance before the PAC must have been the shortest one so far: approximately 13 minutes. He was thanked, but dismissed, after the PAC members had no questions for him given they had been given wrong information about him by Enemalta.

19:58 Geophysicist Godwin Debono appears before the PAC, the second witness this evening.

19:47 Asked by Nationalist MP Beppe Fenech Adami, Scicluna says he believes that even though there were three instances where the cheapest bid had not been chosen, yet the "best" choice had been made.

Fenech Adami also asks whether Scicluna had ever been offered anything to buy his influence as an FPC member. Scicluna says no, adding that he had been 'a nobody' within the committee.

19:44 Referring to the email which former minister Austin Gatt sent to the Risk Management Committee on a hedging policy, Scicluna confirms that members would take a minister's email as an order which is to be followed.

"The minister was shouldering responsibility for that decision. Members of the RMC took the decision. I took down the notes. But there was a ministerial direction and the members adhered to it," he says.

19:23 Scicluna joined Enemalta when Alex Tranter was chairman at Enemalta. He says that FPC members would analyse all bids submitted.

"We would analyse all three bids, if three bids would have been presented," he says. He confirms that bids were received by fax, before evolving to the use of email.

Scicluna describes himself has having been a "very quiet member" of the FPC.

19:16 Scicluna explains that Enemalta sought credit terms, allowing the corporation 30 days to pay the supplier. The 30 days would allow Enemalta to sell petrol and diesel, thus earning the cash to pay the supplier.

19:02 Floor opened to questions, starting off by Labour MP Justyne Caruana.

18:52 This evening's witness is Godfrey Scicluna, Enemalta's financial controller at the petroleum division. From 2009 onwards, since the appointment of Antoine Galea as the Chief Financial Officer, Scicluna was asked to start attending meeting of the fuel procurement committe.

"My role was to provide technical advice," he says. In May, Scicluna was "thanked" for his input within the FPC but was asked by Enemalta chairman Charles Mangion to stop attending meetings of both FPC and risk management committee.

Scicluna says he was not given a reason as to why he was asked to stop. He adds that he was subsequently asked to act as secretary to the advisory and finance committew, set up this year.

18:35 PAC session to start soon.