Charlot Zahra

The Armed Forces of Malta (AFM) has recommended the award of a contract for the supply of 105 protective vests with associated ballistic plates to a tenderer whose bid was 31 per cent more expensive than that of another bidder with a comparable level of protection.

This was revealed during a hearing of the Public Contracts Appeals Board on Thursday following the lodging of an appeal by AFS Ltd against the award of the contract to Uniformity Ltd.

On 26 July, the General Contracts Committee recommended that the contract be awarded to Uniformity at the price of Lm219.50 for each vest and Lm52.49 for each plate.

Objections had to reach the Director-General (Contracts) by noon of 17 August accompanied by a deposit of Lm450.

On 12 August, AFS Ltd filed a Letter of Objection together with the relative deposit. Five days later, they filed a second letter giving the reasons for their objection.

Speaking at the hearing, AFS managing director Joseph Attard said that option 3 of their offer, for a total of Lm25,935, was in full compliance with the tender specification and represented a saving of Lm8,135 or 31 per cent compared to the recommended bid by Uniformity.

In doing so, he said, the AFM had eliminated not one, two or three cheaper options but a total of seven cheaper options available to them.

Mr Attard said the supply of samples for this tender was mandatory for short-listed tenderers, and failure to comply with this requirement meant the disqualification of that particular bidder.

The AFM, he said, had ignored their own specifications in this regard vis-à-vis Uniformity on the basis that their sample had been successfully tested in September 2002.

This, said Mr Attard, was against normal adjudication procedures where each tender is adjudicated on its own merits at the time of the tender without reference to any previous tests, supply or performance.

He said the comparison of ballistic and comfort tests had carried out in a non-scientific manner and without documenting site conditions, equipment calibration, and control methods in line with the relative international standard governing this tender.

Mr Attard also said that the contract had been awarded to Uniformity because its sample performance had been “slightly superior” to that of AFS. Was this criterion enough to justify an additional expenditure of Lm8,135 on the part of the AFM?

Colonel Mario Schembri, adjudication board chairman for this contract, explained that the AFM does not require a bidder to re-submit a sample, which has already been tested, as long as there is a written declaration from the bidder stating that the product is the same as that which had been tested. In this case, Uniformity had signed a declaration to this effect.

This, he said, is done because the samples are expensive for the bidders to obtain and are non-returnable. This procedure had not only been applied to Uniformity but to other bidders as well.

In fact, he revealed that Uniformity had a sample in Malta but the AFM had not asked for it because there was a previous sample on which tests had already been conducted.

Col Schembri explained that the tests were not done by the adjudication board but by a technical board appointed within the AFM itself. Since there were 37 bids in all, they were short-listed on the basis of price and technical specifications. Tests were only carried out on those bids that were short-listed.

Asked by Appeals Board chairman Alfred Triganza to specify what had happened to the seven other bids which had been cheaper than Uniformity’s, Col Schembri replied that bids 1, 3 and 7 had been rejected and bids 2, 4, 5, 6 and 8 were tested.

The technical board tested the vests for a number of criteria, including protection, mobility and compatibility with existing equipment. The technical report’s recommendation was that “consequently, sample A (Uniformity) is still slightly better than sample D (AFS), thus making sample A the best option overall”.

Asked to specify what this meant, Col Schembri said that sample A offered the best protection, had the best fit, was much more comfortable to wear and was the least heavy.

Major Ruggier, who chaired the technical board, explained that the same tests conducted in 2002 (when the last tender for bullet-proof vests and plates was issued) had been conducted this time.

The ballistic tests were carried out with the same weapon and from the same distance. All the tests were photographed and videotaped.

He explained that the level of protection afforded by Uniformity and AFS was the same. However, Uniformity’s sample was one kilogramme lighter. Given that a soldier carries around 18 kilogrammes of equipment, a difference of one kilogramme is vital, since

bullet-proof vests may be used for a long period of time.

Moreover, Major Ruggier said that Uniformity’s sample offered more stability in firing positions and was more compatible with existing AFM equipment.

He said the AFM technical board was not aware of the identity of the bidders, nor their prices.

Mr Attard said that that his sample was heavier because it offered a larger protective surface area than that of Uniformity. He asked Major Ruggier whether they had measured the protective surface area of the two vests and Major Ruggier replied “No”.

Major Ruggier added that the only change made in the ballistic test since the last time was that the plate area had been divided into four quadrants so that the four tests could be conducted on different areas of the plate.

This change had been made because in 2002, in the Uniformity test, when the four rounds (starting from the most powerful to the least in descending order) were fired in more or less the same part of the plate area, the plate resisted the first three rounds but did not resist the fourth round as it had deteriorated.

The case was deferred for judgement at a later date.

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