PUBLIC SERVICES failed in its attempt to get the builder of Guernsey’s proposed incinerator to take on full liability if the plant broke down during the 25-year contract, it has emerged.

One of the criteria PSD wanted to fulfil during the tendering process was to have the ‘construction and operating risks carried fully by the contractor over the full life of the plant’.

However, each of the three tenderers baulked at the idea. And, technically, the fact that each company failed to meet this criterion should have led to them being automatically discarded as possibilities.

‘On initial evaluation, it emerged that none of the tenderers had submitted a fully compliant bid in respect of criterion iii, legal compliance, which meant that, strictly speaking, all should have been marked as a “fail” and not been taken to stage two of the evaluation process,’ Public Services minister Bernard Flouquet said in the Billet report released by the department yesterday.

‘However, this was not considered a sensible approach as it would have resulted in there being no tenders.’

After negotiations with eventual preferred tenderer Suez Environnement, it was agreed that the contractor would be liable for anything that went wrong with the incinerator during the first two years of operation.