An appeal board’s report on government’s process to select a contractor to supply paving stones for Merchants Street, does not only slam the government for lack of transparency and professionalism, but also casts doubts on the genuineness of the “mistake” that led to the cancellation of the same process, maltastar.com reported last night.

“This board feels that a proper and more professional approach by a contracting authority’s public official/s is highly imperative as eventual delays in the final adjudication of tenders could turn out to be a costly exercise, a waste of human resources as well as, possibly, an inconvenience to the general public,” the Public Contracts Appeals Board stated.

Moreover, it questions the decision to include three other companies in the second selection process even though they had not originally submitted a bid.

At best, this move is described as “unfair” to other bidders, at worse a move meant to give companies that had not placed a bid the chance to get their hands on the contract.

Due to this, the PCAB decided to scrap the second selection process as well, and ordered the government to issue a new call for tenders “to ensure that there is complete transparency and fairness in the procedure”. This means that if this call is eventually successful, the government would have had to resort to three selection processes, and a substantial delay in the project, to finally have the pavestones for one street.