17 - 23 February 2000

SIVA consortium meets government over design

by Ivan Brincat

The SIVA consortium, with which the government has started negotiations over the White Rocks Holiday Complex, yesterday held a meeting with the government on the architectural design, sources said.

The meeting was held in Parliament in the morning. Present for the meeting were Minister Michael Refalo, George Micallef and Albert Borg Costanzi, sources told The Malta Business Weekly.

Another meeting is scheduled for 6 March during which the marketing and operations are expected to be discussed, they said.

The White Rocks Holiday saga started when the selection committee informed the minister that it could not submit a final recommendation on which consortium was the best.

According to the terms of reference, the selection committee had to examine the registrations of interest submitted in accordance with the Development Proposals issued by the Ministry of Tourism, to adjudicate the submissions made by the developers and to recommend the most favourable proposal and runners-up.

However, the committee was not in a position to submit a final recommendation although it concluded that the projects submitted by the consortia were of a high standard.

At this stage, the committee went to Dr Refalo for advice. When five consortia were initially shortlisted, they were invited to submit more detailed proposals.

The committee asked the six members entrusted with the voting to take a secret vote with Siva Consortium and Madliena Consortium getting six points.

Tourinvest Consortium, composed of the Libyan Arab Maltese Holding Limited, the Golden Harvest Group, the Formosa Group, Boscolo Hotels and Golden Tulip got three points while Costa San Andrea got one point.

Acting on government advice, the shortlisted consortia were asked to include in their submission a statement indicating the premium of not less than Lm2 million and annual ground rent of not less than Lm50,000 to be revisable every 15 years.

The Madlienea Lido Consortium protested and withdrew from the project. This criteria did not form part of the evaluation criteria according to the brief but Dr Michael Refalo had decided to open the bids in front of the three consortia. The meeting was cancelled since two consortia objected.

Following a cabinet meeting, Dr Refalo was advised to start negotiations with the consortium that got the highest number of votes.

The saga continued on Monday evening when former tourism minister Karmenu Vella tabled the report in Parliament after Dr Refalo refused to make the report public.