17 - 23 February 2000

Negotiations over White Rocks complex begin

by Ivan Brincat

The government has begun to negotiate the development of the White Rocks complex with the SIVA consortium, the Minister for Tourism, Michael Refalo, announced in a statement yesterday.

Dr Refalo said it was in the interest of everyone for negotiations to start and be finalised as soon as possible and that the process is carried out in a transparent manner. The minister said the first meeting with the SIVA consortium was held yesterday.

Dr Refalo said that when a satisfactory agreement is reached with one of consortia and the Cabinet makes the final decision, he will authorise the committee report and all the negotiation papers to be given to the media and to anyone who shows interest.

On Monday, the minister had given a proposal to the Cabinet on how things would proceed. He said the Cabinet agreed unanimously that negotiations should start with the consortium which had the highest number of points according to the report of the Select Committee.

Dr Refalo said the Cabinet decided that the negotiations should focus on the areas in question raised by the committee report and also that these should not last longer than six weeks.

The Cabinet also agreed that if an agreement which satisfied those who represent government is reached, than a report will be made so that it is considered by Cabinet.

If no agreement is reached between the government and the consortium, the government will start to discuss with the second consortium using the same procedures and if this also proves negative, the government will discuss with the third consortium. If there is no agreement with any of the three consortia, the government will pass on the state of negotiations to the committee who will be asked to take another vote and make his final recommendations and choice.

The government will be represented by the minister, the permanent secretary in the ministry of tourism Louis Naudi and the chairman of the committee Carmel Portelli.

Dr Refalo said in his statement that the government had informed him that three proposals were of a high standard but all had some problems that need to be negotiated. The committee also informed the minister that two votes were taken and the results were very close so the committee could not give a definite recommendation. The committee asked the minister to be given guidance of how the process will be

carried on.

The minister said he appreciated the conclusions of the committee members and their reluctance to give a definite answer. "It was for this reason that I decided to find other ways on how to reach a clearer grading so that negotiations could start. In these circumstances, in the interest of the Maltese citizens, I decided that negotiations should start with the consortium which had made the highest financial offer without excluding the other consortia from the process."

Dr Refalo said he could have easily asked the Permanent Secretary to open the offers and inform him of the results but for the sake of transparency he decided to open the sealed letters in front of representatives of the three consortia.

The minister said that there were those who disagreed and filed a prohibitory injunction in court which was upheld. He said he did not agree with the Court's decision and will contest it, even though he respected the decision.

He said that in these circumstances there were two options, either to select a consortium by lots, which is not a serious way of doing things, or else to go back to the grading according to the votes of committee members.

San Andrea Consortium insist report should be published

The San Andrea Consortium yesterday wrote its second letter in three weeks asking for the Minister of Tourism to give them a copy of the report prepared by the White Rocks Selection Committee.

The Consortium drew the minister's attention to item 3.1.1 of the detailed requirements which states that the Ministry of Tourism intends to ensure that the selection process is conducted in a rigorous and transparent manner.

In the letter signed by Tony Zahra, on behalf of Costa San Andrea Consortium, they said that the publication of the report will contribute towards compliance with the above mentioned transparency clause. "We are therefore today asking you to provide our consortium with a copy of the report."

He said that he was sure the minister appreciated that after spending many months working on this project and many thousands of Maltese liri invested in work connected with the preparation of their project, Costa San Andrea believed that a copy of the report should be passed on to the consortia as of right.

Mr Zahra added that the consortium had also asked for an appointment with the minister to request a copy of the report on the selection committee but were informed that the minister did not wish to meet with any of the consortia.

Meanwhile, in a statement issued yesterday, Costa San Andrea said it was amazed that the government had decided to start negotiations with Gasan/SIVA Group.

Mr Zahra said the project lacked many factors both on financing, architectural design, marketing and operations and also in the summary of areas of concern.

He said that with all these concerns and presumably others which are in the report that have not yet been made public, one cannot understand how the minister has decided to open negotiations with one consortium

He said there was no transparency in the White Rocks Project - the report of the White Rocks remains unpublished and one wonders why at this stage such report is not made public.

Mr Zahra said that with all the concerns raised with regards to the SIVA proposal, San Andrea consortium feels that this report is now crucial and publication is essential to convince the public at large that the process has been carried out in a serious and transparent manner.