The Chamber of Small and Medium Enterprises (GRTU) yesterday filed an application for a warrant of prohibitory injunction over the much-talked-about ICT tender for the leasing of personal computers and laptops and workstation support services.
The application for a warrant of prohibitory injunction was filed against the Prime Minister, the Industry, Investments and Information Technology Minister, the Director General of Contracts and the Malta Information Technology and Training Services Ltd.
In its application, the GRTU made reference to the invitation to tender which was issued on 25 April and which closes today. It made specific reference to two clauses in the said tender document with which it is obliging the tenderers to provide “desktop PCs (which) should be equipped with a TFT monitor of the same brand as the tower/desktop” and another clause which states that the bid bond is of Lm25,000.
The GRTU claimed that these two conditions are in breach of the principles of the European Union which states that all public tenders have to be made accessible to small and medium-sized enterprises.
The chamber referred to article 2 of EU directive 2004/ 12EC, which states that “contracting authorities shall treat economic operators equally and non-discriminatorily and shall act in a transparent way”. It also quoted another article which states that “technical specifications shall afford equal access for tenderers and not have the effect or creating obstacles to the opening up of public procurement to competition”.
On the request for a TFT monitor that is of the same brand as the tower, the chamber said that the tender document does not give a plausible explanation for this request. On the other condition, the chamber said it is totally disproportionate to the turnover of small and medium enterprises. The chamber therefore called on the court to issue a warrant of prohibitory injunction stopping the authorities from continuing, finalising or adjudicating the said tender.
Dr Ian Spiteri Bailey and Dr Ingrid Bianco signed the application.