All summer the rumor circulated, without ever being officially confirmed. The choice of the Eiffage and Sodeports group as delegatee of the public service concession for the operation and redevelopment of the marinas in Toulon harbor, from January 1, 2024, facing its outgoing competitor the Chamber of Commerce and Industry. industry of the Var, was to remain confidential until its validation by metropolitan elected officials next Thursday, September 28. It missed.
The Anticor association, which tracks the subject of port public service delegations (DSP) throughout France, and particularly in the Côte d’Azur and Var municipalities, has decided otherwise. The Var branch claims to have sent a report to the Toulon public prosecutor’s office concerning the procedure which led to the selection of one of these two candidates.
Assistance to the project owner in question
Specifically, Anticor highlights the conditions under which assistance to the project owner was chosen, with a view to launching this public contract. Commonly called AMO, this assistance is provided by a specialized firm, to the community launching the market. This actor is particularly important, because he, in a way, replaces the principal for all technical, financial and legal questions and can, as such, have an opinion on the candidates authorized to submit an offer.
Links between AMO and Eiffage?
However, according to Anticor, several irregularities taint the choice of AMO for the DSP market for the marinas of Toulon harbour. “It appears in the minutes of the tender commission of January 29, 2019, at the end of which the choice was made, that all the members were not convened, which is contrary to the attribution rules. Furthermore, two of the candidates have links to each other, because their managers are associated in the same company in Dubai” explains Jean Galli, Anticor referent for the Var. Which constitutes an infringement of competition rules. The association indicates that it alerted TPM services at the time (read below).
Finally, the association which closely follows this type of public procurement on the Var and Riviera coast (notably in Cavalaire and Villeneuve-Loubet where investigations are underway), points out the indirect link which would exist, according to the documents it has handed over to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, between a manager of the firm responsible for the AMO and an executive from Eiffage. The manufacturer, whom we tried to contact, did not respond to our request. The suspicions, supported by numerous documents from Anticor, should sow trouble among the elected officials of TPM, called to validate the choice of the tender commission by voting for a deliberation entrusting the management of the ports of the harbor in Eiffage, next Thursday. In a press release issued this Wednesday evening, Cécile Muschotti, elected metropolitan and municipal representative from Toulouse, opened the ball, expressing her “concern” and taking up the points set out by Anticor.
Cécile Muschotti calls for vigilance
The UCE advisor (Centrist Ecologist Union) thus indicates “I openly and insistently ask that the deliberation approving a new operator to manage our marinas be removed from the agenda.”
Contacted by Var Matin, Jean-Pierre Giran, who chairs TPM, is surprised “I have never received so many letters from one candidate about another”, referring to the CCI which would have expressed its concern, too, about the progress of the procedure. President of the Var CCI, Basil Gertis, for his part, did not wish to speak.
“The Anticor demonstration is late. But we took these signals seriously, and informed the prefect who gave us advice to continue the procedure, specifies Mr. Giran. At this stage, there is no reliable information leading us to cancel anything. We saw such and such a person eating together! Can you imagine if calls for tenders had to be canceled each time? Moreover, if we did so, the candidate selected by the commission could also challenge this decision. If one of the candidates or Anticor wishes to attack the deliberation, once it has been voted on, they will be able to do so.” And the Prefecture will exercise, as it specifies to Var Matin, its legality control mission on this text.
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