More delays at Mater Dei as contractor accuses government of bad governance

A long-delayed project to build an extension to Mater Dei’s overcrowded emergency department, as well as additional floors to replace Mount Carmel’s mental hospital, will have to wait many more months, if not years, to commence, as the only contractor submitting a bid has objected to the tender’s cancellation.

CE-BB Projects has formally filed the objection – the only consortium that submitted a bid, offering to do the job for a staggering €136 million for a project estimated by the Health Ministry to cost €80 million, or half the offer’s value.

Bonnici Brothers, one of the consortium’s partners, is very close to the Prime Minister and has been the recipient of multi-million-euro tenders and direct orders since Abela took office. Its managing director, Gilbert Bonnici, was a business partner of the prime minister in property development. Its partner in this bid, CE Installations, is owned by Labour’s minority leader in the Naxxar local council.

Through its lawyers, the consortium formally requested that the Public Contracts Review Board (PCRB) prevent the government from cancelling the tender and reissuing it.

They argue that the government’s decision, particularly since they were the only bidders for the massive project, is discriminatory, lacks transparency, and constitutes poor governance.

While recognising that their bid was much higher than the estimated value of the tender, they accused the Health Ministry of not doing its homework properly, as the estimated value of the tender was unrealistic.

They asked the PCRB to hold the government responsible for breaching public procurement rules and to award them the tender instead.

Last week, The Shift revealed that after wasting almost a year in the procurement process for this tender while Mater Dei is unable to handle the number of patients who need the emergency department, forcing them to wait long hours to get a service, the Health Ministry decided that the tender it had been evaluating for months was to be scrapped.

The latest development, leading to the filing of an appeal, will further prolong the delays, as the process will need to be heard and decided before the government can issue a new tender and restart the process.

Sources at the Foundation for Medical Services (FMS), which set the original estimate for the project, told The Shift that this is the result of mismanagement and incompetence at the Health Ministry, which ordered the issuance of the tender with outdated estimates.

Almost all health-related infrastructure projects initiated during the past few years are significantly delayed.

The latest is the Paola Hub – a regional small hospital – which was scheduled to open in 2022 but remains unfinished.

To give the impression that the €40 million building is almost ready, Health Minister Jo Etienne Abela opened a limited section of the building. He said that the rest would be opened gradually.

Other projects, promised many years ago, including a new Gozo General Hospital and the rehabilitation of Mount Carmel, among others, are still either at an embryonic stage or the planning stage.