PM’s former business partner wins Pixkerija concession appeal despite offering a lower financial bid

A company led by Prime Minister Robert Abela’s former business partner, Gilbert Bonnici, has successfully overturned the government’s award of the lucrative Old Fish Market (Pixkerija) concession, despite offering around €350,000 less per year than the winning bidder.

Bonnici Bros Ltd had offered annual concession payments of €242,435, while rival bidder Carmelo Stivala Group, headed by Malta Developers Association president Michael Stivala, offered €592,440 annually, a substantial difference over the 65-year concession period.

Yet in an 87-page judgment, delivered after proceedings that took almost two years, the government-appointed Public Contracts Review Board (PCRB) surprisingly upheld an appeal filed by Bonnici Bros and cancelled the recommendation to award the concession to the Stivala Group, finding serious flaws in the evaluation process.

The concession covers the regeneration of the historic Old Fish Market site in Valletta, together with the former Quarantine Hospital, adjacent heritage buildings and extensive berthing facilities along the Grand Harbour waterfront. It is considered one of the most valuable public land concessions currently under government control.

The successful appeal was filed by Bonnici Bros, whose managing director Gilbert Bonnici was previously involved in private business ventures with Prime Minister Robert Abela before Abela entered politics.

The concession had originally been awarded to the Carmelo Stivala Group, headed by Malta Developers Association president Michael Stivala. The group also employs disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat as a consultant.

Despite securing the highest overall score and offering substantially higher annual payments to government, the Stivala Group’s victory has now been overturned after the PCRB concluded that the evaluation process was fundamentally flawed.

At the centre of the dispute was a mandatory Design Rating Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) required by the Request for Proposals.

The Board found that the Stivala Group failed to submit the certificate required by the tender document.

Evidence presented during the proceedings showed that the evaluation committee’s own technical expert was unable to identify a valid EPC within the winning bid. Instead, the bidder merely referred to its intention to obtain environmental certification at a later stage.

When evaluators subsequently sought clarification, the bidder was asked to identify where the certificate could be found in its proposal. The response pointed back to the same report rather than producing the required document.

The PCRB, chaired by Kenneth Swain, concluded that the omission was not a minor defect capable of rectification but a substantive failure to comply with a mandatory tender requirement.

The Board also criticised the marks awarded to the Stivala Group under the criterion of “Alternative Energy Generation”.

According to the judgment, the bidder explicitly stated that alternative energy generation was not feasible for the proposed development because of site limitations.

Despite this, evaluators awarded the proposal four marks out of a possible five under that criterion.

The PCRB described the scoring as “manifestly erroneous”, noting that the bidder had effectively been awarded near-maximum marks for a feature it had expressly ruled out.

The appeal also exposed shortcomings in the government’s handling of information requests made by Bonnici Bros after the award recommendation was announced.

The unsuccessful bidder requested documentation to verify whether the winning proposal complied with the tender requirements. The contracting authority failed to provide the requested information before the statutory deadline for filing an appeal expired.

The Board ruled that this failure placed Bonnici Bros at a material disadvantage and constituted a procedural irregularity in the procurement process.

While the judgment does not automatically award the concession to Bonnici Bros, it effectively nullifies the recommendation in favour of the Stivala Group and forces the contracting authority to reconsider its position.

The Stivala Group may still challenge the decision before the Court of Appeal.