The Civil Court has provisionally upheld an application for the issue of a warrant of prohibitory injunction against the Director of Contracts with regard to the tender for the provision of cleaning services at Mater Dei Hospital.

Bad Boy Cleaning Services Ltd, MCCS Company Ltd and Dr Andrew Borg-Cardona, being a representative of Coopservice S.Coop, filed the application on Monday, claiming they had been unfairly and illegally excluded from the

tender process.

The submission of a tender offer carries a bid bond that must include a guarantee that the price they are offering will remain the same until the contract is awarded.

In their writ, the applicants claimed that one of the bid bond’s one-year validity guarantees expired by less than 0.5 per cent and this could not possibly make any difference with regard to a bid bond that was otherwise valid in every other aspect.

Moreover, they claimed, the validity period of bid bonds in this particular scenario is immaterial, since it is public knowledge that the new hospital should begin operating in much less than a year.

According to the applicants, the contracts board misinterpreted the principle of transparency. The reason to disqualify the bidders was so minimal that it makes the exclusion unjustified, insignificant and irrelevant, particularly when considering a similar board decision that had been taken in favour of RiteMix (Gatt Brothers Ltd).

The applicants claimed they had been irremediably prejudiced and public interest was also being prejudiced against, considering the importance of the new hospital to the country.

The court upheld the application for a 30-day period until a final decision is taken. The Director of Contracts is allowed 10 days to reply to the application and the case has been deferred until 3 August.

Dr Andrew Borg-Cardona signed the writ.