Audit service finds that over three quarters of projects not completed on time

Public work projects totaling more than €1 billion were awarded to just three contractors – Cyfield, Iacovou Brothers and Cybarco – from 2015 to 2024, the audit service said in a report published on Tuesday.

“A significant percentage of the total contract value was concentrated in a limited number of contractors,” the report read.

According to the report, the overall funds spent on public work projects in the respective period amounted to €2.51 billion, €1.03 billion – or 40.8 per cent – of which was spent on projects undertaken by the three contractors.

Cyfield emerged as having supervised the overwhelming majority of the projects, 157 in total, adding up to €563,955,276.

Iacovou Brothers followed with 84 projects at €321,977,123, while Cybarco carried out 40 projects worth a total of €140,976,255.

The audit report highlighted that while the three major contractors only carried out 13 per cent of the projects, they secured 40.8 per cent of the budget, leading it to express concern about market monopolisation.

“These figures indicate increasing concentration of the market for major projects to specific contractors,” the report said.

It added that Cyfield ranked first in market share distribution for four consecutive years 2019 2023.

The report also said that in 14.2 per cent of the projects, only one bid for the tender was submitted and was ultimately awarded to the bidder.

“This should be a cause for concern for contracting authorities when conducting tenders, especially where there are indications that a particular contractor is repeatedly the only bidder,” the report said.

During the period examined in the report, the most expensive tender, for €72million, was awarded to Greek construction company Intrakat, which had been contracted to build part of the Paphos-Polis motorway.

Signed in 2021, the contract was eventually terminated with works being paused in April 2024 after Intrakat chose not to complete the project following several budget increases and an extension of the completion period.

Overall, the report revealed that public works projects are frequently completed late.

On average, the contractual and actual durations of projects result in a delay of 461 days, equating to 76.7 per cent of the initial contractual execution time.

However, the audit service does not investigate the causes of this phenomenon in depth, emphasising that the reasons for the delays were not its focus.

“Therefore the audit service has not examined whether they were justified, approved, and which contracting party is responsible [contracting authority or contractor],” it concluded.