|
A media service for the European Commission’s representation in Malta is expected to pass into the hands of its own staff after the impartiality and integrity of the service was put into serious doubt.
MaltaToday is informed that by September, the representation staff at Ta’ Xbiex will be conducting its own daily audiovisual and print media briefing after the Commission decided not to renew the contract it awarded to a company owned by the Nationalist party.
The service provided by Informa, a subsidiary of the PN’s media company Media.Link subsidiary, will not be renewed after the Commission decided to take into account “sensitivities that were brought to attention by the Maltese media.”
A representation spokesperson said the Commission services were considering several options for the press review, “including the feasibility of an in-house service.”
A new call for tender will not be launched until the in-house option is fully assessed.
MaltaToday first revealed in November 2005 that the PN media company had been chosen to provide a daily media digest for the Commission’s delegation.
Media.Link, whose directors are secretary-general Joe Saliba and deputy PM Tonio Borg, was chosen after the Commission entered into head-to-head discussions when it found no eligible candidate for the contract.
The issue was taken up in the European Parliament by Green MEP Carl Schylter and Labour MEP Joseph Muscat, who personally told Commissioner Margot Wallström the award of the contract had been “unacceptable”.
“Awarding such a contract to a political party is unacceptable in a democratic country. You cannot have a major player in politics providing a service requiring impartiality. It’s a case of political sensitivity – in this case it was the apex of tastelessness,” Muscat said earlier in June.
An independent audit into the tender award had been launched in January 2006, but was never carried out after the four audit firms approached by the Commission did not accept to carry out the audit.
Muscat claimed auditors KPMG and PricewaterhouseCoopers refused on grounds of having links with the PN. The other firms approached were BDO and Ernst & Young.
The European Commission had stood by its position that Media.Link had been chosen for offering the best value for money, despite the service contract stipulating that contractors had to take measures against conflicts of interests of “political or national affinity”.
But a spokesperson for Wallström had said last year that it was known that Media.Link was owned by a political party and this “was not considered to be a conflict of interests by the technical services of the Commission rules.”
The Commission said that excluding Media.Link for being a party-owned company “was considered as unjustified with respect to the public procurement regulations.”
Media.Link is expected to have earned over EUR109,500 (Lm47,412) for its service. The contract was up for renewal for a maximum of five years for which the company stood to receive EUR565,000 (Lm244,000) over the entire period.
mvella@mediatoday.com.mt
Links:
www.maltatoday.com.mt/2005/11/20/top_stroy.html
|
