Sant accuses minister of misleading Parliament over contracts

Labour leader Alfred Sant yesterday accused Education Minister Louis Galea and Competitiveness Minister Censu Galea of misleading the House on Tuesday.

Dr Sant told a press conference Dr Galea tabled a list of contracts issued by the Foundation for Tomorrow's Schools to rebut criticism that such contracts had been awarded to contractors hailing from the electoral districts he contests.

However, while the list tabled referred to contracts given between 2005 and 2006, his (Dr Sant's) criticism referred to contracts in 2002 and 2003.

Furthermore, Dr Galea used the word Nazi in his (Dr Sant's) regard and was not stopped by the Speaker of the House of Representatives. Dr Sant challenged Dr Galea to repeat what he said outside the House so that he would be able to sue him for libel.

(On Tuesday, Dr Galea said he was not implying Dr Sant was a Nazi but his tactics were similar to those employed by the Nazis. Speaking in Parliament last night, Dr Sant said that once Dr Galea had not been stopped from making his comment, he would say that Dr Galea and his methods were Nazi. The Speaker said he had intervened and the minister had made a clarification.)

Dr Sant said that when he spoke on the FTS contracts in Parliament, he had referred to the scandalous manner in which 65 per cent of contracts given by direct order in 2002 and 2003 went to people in Dr Galea's districts.

The award of these contracts had also been subject to an investigation by the Auditor General and to a magisterial inquiry which had concluded that the administrator of the FTS budget had requested but was never given assistance and so ended up not keeping the books in order. Thus, Dr Sant said, certain replies given by Dr Galea in Parliament could have been misleading.

The magisterial inquiry had highlighted that there were many times when financial laws regulating the public service were breached or ignored and, on a particular occasion, all members but one of the FTS board accepted payment without the approval of the Office of the Prime Minister.

The inquiry had also called for criminal action to be taken against a person who was paid twice - by the FTS and by the Education Department.

The Auditor General had concluded that the FTS had consciously worked around the government's financial regulations when bidders first won contracts but were then given more work without going to tender.

Direct orders were given without the Finance Minister's permission and without any other offers being requested. Moreover, up to 50 per cent of the cost was also paid before the work started.

Dr Galea, Dr Sant said, had also been involved in the scandal regarding auxiliary workers in 1990.

It had emerged that 75 per cent of the contractors renting machinery to the auxiliaries lived in Dr Galea's electoral districts. One was Dr Galea's driver, who used to make, besides his usual pay, an additional Lm90 a day from such rentals.

Dr Sant said that when speaking in Parliament on Tuesday, Dr Galea had given the impression that he was a champion of transparency and accountability when the facts showed otherwise.

Competitiveness Minister Censu Galea, on the other hand, lacked political integrity because he had misled the House with his reply to a parliamentary question in 2002. For, while he had said one thing when he believed he was speaking in private he gave a different reply to a parliamentary question put in 2002, Dr Sant said.

Although Mr Galea had been caught on tape in 2002 saying there were people in the Transport Authority who were being paid without going to work, in reply to a parliamentary question that same year he said that no one was found to have been absent from work, Dr Sant said.

Mr Galea has insisted in Parliament that his reply to the question had been correct because he had been asked about departments and not authorities.

However, Dr Sant said yesterday this was an unbelievably feeble excuse which confirmed Mr Galea's lack of political integrity.

Asked about Mr Galea's claims that the person who had recorded him had faced serious accusations but investigations had stopped within a month of Labour taking office in 1996, Dr Sant said this was irrelevant to Mr Galea's case. Labour had never commented on what others said but on what the minister said. He said he could not say whether the investigations referred to had been stopped because he had not gone into the issue.

Dr Sant pointed out that he had asked in Parliament, but was not given a reply, about a drug trafficker who had been given bail against a guarantee of Lm25,000 and who recently paid this amount in cash without any questions being asked. However, if somebody deposited Lm5,000 in cash at a bank he would be asked where he got the money from, Dr Sant pointed out.