The bid was never offered to a public tender, costing Egypt huge amounts of money, prosecutors said.

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Many projects, he claims, have been awarded with no public tender and end up over-budget, late or poorly built.

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In both cases, had plans to develop state-owned nature reserves been put out to tender, and the deals been made public, each might have taken longer to wrap up, but the resultant deal would probably have been greeted as a triumph in the search for foreign investment.

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Karen Jennings, assistant general secretary of the public sector union Unison, is worried that the new service, once put out to tender, could be target-driven meaning some patients are forced back to work too early.

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Aware of the potential of her project but unable to finance it she applied to a government tender scheme that allows small businesses or individuals to bid for one-off jobs with public bodies, such as cleaning or construction contracts.

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