Steering committee chairman stressed confidentiality, ethics

The chairman of the steering committee responsible for the adjudication of the IT system installation tender at Mater Dei Hospital said in court yesterday he had insisted on the need of observing confidentiality and ethics.

Claudio Grech, who also heads the secretariat at the Ministry of IT and Investment, testified at length in the compilation of evidence against Noel Xuereb, 42, of St Julians, and Pierre Mercieca 47, of Attard.

Mr Xuereb, a member of the tender's core evaluation committee, is pleading not guilty to accepting bribes, embezzlement, taking a private interest in the adjudication of tenders and disclosing professional secrets when he served as a public officer on and before January 14.

Mr Mercieca is charged with bribing Mr Xuereb and with complicity. He is a part-time employee with Inso, a company that formed part of the consortium AME that was bidding for the IT contract.

Mr Grech gave a detailed chronological account of the long adjudication process and presented 48 documents to back up his testimony, which has still to be concluded.

He explained how the process was set in motion in June 2004, when he was appointed to head the tender adjudication process by Minister Austin Gatt. Between then and April 2005 many meetings were held during which the parties involved decided on the process to be followed.

On April 14, 2005, the Ministry of IT and Malta Information Technology and Training Services Limited (Mitts) signed a contract on client representative services.

Mr Xuereb, a Mitts employee, had worked on previous projects to the satisfaction of all involved and Mr Grech appointed him to provide services in core information systems.

Later that same month, following a meeting with the Prime Minister, it was decided to set up a steering group and Mr Grech was appointed to chair it. A Lm10 million budget was also set.

Sitting on the steering group was Mr Xuereb, who represented the IT Ministry. Mr Grech explained that Mr Xuereb remained a Mitts employee but his services were bought (by the ministry) from Mitts.

In May 2005, the contract notice for the hospital's integrated health information system was issued.

This was a pre-tender document. The decision was also taken to categorise the tender requirements into three sets according to their urgency.

In June 2005, a vendor briefing session was held during which all those interested in the process were invited so that any questions they had could be answered. Mr Grech noted that, during this stage, he stressed on the importance of observing confidentiality and ethics. In fact, he added, the steering group drafted a code of conduct in order to ensure that the expected values and ethical standards would be upheld.

In June 2005, the expressions of interest were received and, a few days later, three committees were set up to ensure that the tender adjudication process included a system of checks and balances.

The three committees were: The shortlisting evaluation committee, the core evaluation committee and the adjudication committee. No member of one committee was allowed to sit on another and Mr Grech and Mr Xuereb sat on the core evaluation committee. This, Mr Grech added, carried a lot of weight in the three-tier system set up but no one committee had a determining role on the process.

A series of other meetings were held during which two committee members stepped down because of conflict on interest. Then, in October 2006, there was the final call for proposals and six bidders were shortlisted. Other meetings with the bidders followed.

On January 16, 2006, on the eve of the closing date for the bids, the members of the evaluation and adjudicating committee were appointed.

On January 17, three proposals were received from AME/Inso, iSoft and Intracom. A month later they made a presentation of their proposals.

Some time later, Gartner Consulting was appointed by the government as an independent advisory firm. Gartner advised the government to send a team abroad to see what was being proposed by the bidders. Mr Xuereb was one of the team members who travelled to make these overseas site visits, Mr Grech explained.

Following several meetings, consultations and reports, Intracom was eliminated as there was a problem with the software. It was decided to open the third package of iSoft and AME/Inso. When the packages were opened, the government sought the advice of Price Waterhouse Coopers (PWC) as there were questions regarding the interpretation of VAT owed, especially in the AME/Inso bid.

Then, media reports claimed that iSoft was in financial difficulty and the government appointed Gartner to report on the situation.

The PWC and Gartner reports were only to be seen by the members of the core evaluation committee at that stage.

Mr Grech stopped testifying at this stage because the magistrate had to hear other cases. He is expected to continue giving evidence in the next court sitting, the date of which has still to be set.

Police Inspectors Joseph Cordina and Ian Abdilla are conducting the prosecution.

Lawyers Joseph Giglio, Emmanuel Mallia and Giannella Caruana Curran are defence counsel.