Taxpayers will be saving almost €4 million as a tender awarded for the building of a new health centre in Paola has been reversed following serious doubts on how the original evaluation and adjudication process was carried out.
Some days ago, the Department of Contracts said it had decided to reverse its original decision and to award the project to Egron-Technoline Consortium at the price of €22 million.
This reverses the original decision made by the Contracts Department earlier this year to award the same contract to SP BB International JV, despite their quote a cost of €26 million.
Read: ‘War’ over multimillion-euro Paola health centre tender
The Department of Contracts had tried to justify its decision by saying the consortium with the lowest price was not compliant with the tender requirements and was eliminated.
However, following an appeal, both the Public Contracts Review Board (PCRB) and the Appeals Court raised doubts on the way the evaluation was carried by government officials and ordered a re-evaluation of the tender through a completely new evaluation committee.
In its decision, the Appeals Court had described as “of serious concern” the way the multi-million…
