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Matthew Vella
Labour MEP Joseph Muscat has asked the European Commission if it will consider looking into the procurement procedure in the choice of Verint, an Israeli firm which will be supplying the Malta Security Services with its unified legal interception system.
The Malta Communications Authority is being sued for damages by rival bidder RCS, an Italian firm, which claims that the MCA’s decision was illegal and discriminatory.
RCS was informed on 29 December 2005 that its offer had been rejected and the contract assigned to Verint. The company was told by the MCA it could not appeal the decision due to a “dispensation” which exempted the contract from public procurement rules.
The MCA has claimed the contract was issued by the Malta Security Service, which is which is afforded special powers to spend money without having to account for its expenditure.
But the MCA only signed its memorandum of understanding with the MSS a week after informing RCS of its decision, on 5 January 2006.
RCS was informed in a meeting held with the MCA on 3 January 2006, that its offer had been the cheapest and was also compliant and sound, but that Verint’s offer was “holistically superior”.
Muscat has also asked the Commission to look into reports in various media, including Le Monde, on Verint’s link to a major espionage investigation after the September 11 attacks.
According to a report by Fox News, the Drug Enforcement Administration had interrogated some 60 Israeli military spies who were parading as “art students” in areas close to DEA field offices and secret areas. Some of the spies were working at Comverse, the parent company of Verint. Comverse supplies US law enforcement with its interception technology.
RCS sales director Luca Crovato has presented a court affidavit claiming that a Verint upgrade sold to telephony company Go Mobile, could have served as a reason why the Malta Security Services opted for Verint, even though RCS’s offer was the cheapest.
Both the security services and Go Mobile already operate Verint’s legal interception system.
In his affidavit, Crovato expressed his surprise at being informed by the MCA that Verint had sold to Go Mobile an upgrade on their lawful interception system.
“What would have happened had the tender been awarded to RCS rather than Verint? Go Mobile would have acquired a solution that was not compatible and would have caused a problem in creating the fund necessary to pay the tender issued by MCA,” Crovato said in his affidavit.
“I do not believe that the ‘upgrade’ sold to Go Mobile was to be simply dismissed once the tender was awarded, but was to be ‘reused by Verint’… By reusing an upgrade, Verint was able to, de facto, change the scope of the supply for the tender.”
mvella@mediatoday.com.mt
Links:
www.maltatoday.com.mt/2006/08/20/t1.html
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