Yesterday evening, Ministry of Finance director general Ram Belinkov, who is also acting head of the Government Companies Authority, notified Eli Tilles, who represents the consortium in which Turkish companies were bidding in the privatization tender for Haifa Port, that the consortium's bid had been disqualified.
The tenders committee decided, with the backing of the ministerial committee on the matter, to end the consortium's participation in the tender for reasons of national security. Last October, "Globes" revealed that because of the security concerns, the Turkish consortium had been informed of the intention to disqualify it, and had been invited to a hearing after the consortium's legal counsel, Adv. Amnon Epstein, sent the Government Companies Authority a letter in advance of a petition to the court.
"From the Government Companies' Authority's notification, it appears that two companies with minor shares in the consortium, that are huge international conglomerates, have, in a completely Kafkaesque way, after eighteen months of investment in participation in the sale process, turned into a security threat," Epstein wrote.
Published by Globes, Israel business news - en.globes.co.il - on February 14, 2022.
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