Falzon defended

The Investment, Industry and Technology Ministry yesterday came out strongly in defence of Michael Falzon, chairman of the Water Services Corporation, who has been accused of conflict of interest by the Labour Party because of his involvement in companies of the Polidano Group since March 2007.

The ministry said Minister Austin Gatt had requested and been given a list of contracts awarded by the corporation to the Polidano Group since January 1, 2000. The facts were:

• in seven years the Polidano Group was awarded work worth only Lm338,618, a ridiculous average of Lm48,374 per year, the ministry said;

This work was spread over 41 orders, an average of Lm8,258 for each order:

• sixteen of the orders were given after they were drawn by lot. They covered 44 per cent of the total work awarded to the Polidano Group; and

• twenty orders, for 41 per cent of the work, were awarded under the system where contractors who were engaged by local councils or the ADT were automatically awarded the related work by the corporation.

Mr Falzon could not influence the choice of contractors who were drawn by lot or selected by councils or the ADT, the ministry pointed out.

Apart from the contract on the sewage purification plant, Polidano was awarded just four other contracts by the corporation in seven years. Their value was Lm46,891. The ministry said it published information on the selection boards for these tenders to show that Mr Falzon was not involved in them.

Since January 24, the Polidano Group had bid for 21 contracts and was turned down. Moreover, in the past five years the corporation fined the Polidano Group Lm17,498 for damages caused during works for the corporation.

The ministry said these facts showed that the opposition's criticism was only based on mud slinging.