PS OPINION PAGE

Bottom line there is one major thing that Greece’s container terminal privatisation process is predicated on as regards securing a winning bid – namely the highest bid in terms of the financial offer. Even so this has not deterred many participants; all the big names are understood to be expressing interest in one or more of the concessions including DP World, Hutchison, PSA International, COCSO, APM Terminals and Zim.

Certain of these parties have had their eye on these concessions for some time, visited the ports, got to know the opportunity, the people and have generally been preparing for the day when the tender process was announced and bids called for.

Undoubtedly, this is a tactic that will pay dividends and this becomes painstakingly clear when digging into the detail of the tender process. There are several aspects of this which on the hand raise the question is this a fair tender process and on the other whether it has a flawed structure?

What makes it unfair? Technically you could say nothing because everyone is in the same boat when it comes to responding to the tender requirements. In reality, however, when you look at the issues of technical qualification, the overall timing of the process which is relatively short and practical issues such as the language to be used throughout the tender process, it does raise significant question marks.

One major questionable aspect of the technical qualification is that there is a requirement for the incoming investor over the past three years to have handled a cumulative total of over 5m teu. In itself this phrase is ambiguous – does it mean a combined total of over 5m teu over the last three years or does it mean over 5m teu for each of the last three years? The general impression is that it is the latter ruling that applies but either way such a requirement is absolute nonsense. Why do you need to have an experience record like this to bid for a terminal such as Thessaloniki which handles around 400,000 teu annually or for Piraeus which handles a similar amount of gateway cargo plus some transhipment business? The simple answer is you don’t and therefore when such rulings are applied the suspicion creeps in that they are there not to qualify the right people but to keep others out and restrict competition.

The same assumption can be arrived at when reviewing the financial qualifying criteria which are very, very “heavy duty” when weighed against the requirements of acquiring the Piraeus and Thessaloniki container terminal concessions. Let’s put it this way: if these requirements applied to all the other container terminal concession deals done around the world then more than 75% of them would never have been achieved!

Another area where you begin to have doubts about the cleanliness of the tender process is when factors start to creep in such as a rapid timetable and where difficulties are posed by having to deal with everything, even asking questions, in just one language. Both factors apply in Greece – why is it only 50+ days to complete the process – this really isn’t enough time for parties who have come to the process cold. And particularly when you are told the language of the tender process will be exclusively Greek – not Greek and English – just Greek.

What do such restrictions do to maximise interest in the concessions? Answer, absolutely nothing. In reality, all they do is further raise suspicions that such technicalities are being applied to exclude certain bidders and to push the tender processes in certain directions.