Suspected fraud not linked to bridge certification - supervisor

The consortium that was appointed to supervise the certification of Manwel Dimech Bridge explained today that the suspected fraud revealed by the Infrastructure Ministry yesterday did not involve any wrongdoing on its part.

Architect Robert Sant, writing on behalf of the consortium formed by Design and Technical Resources Ltd Ltd (DTR) and Konig, Heunisch and Partner (KHP), explained that they had been entrusted by the Transport Authority (ADT) to be the supervisor for the certification of the works on the bridge.

The ADT then separately engaged a consortium of contractors entrusted with the civil works, using their own engineers.

DTR and KHP’s terms of engagement established that a final certification had to be completed by them as the supervisor, following the completion of the works on the bridge. This certification comprised an analysis of all the works carried out by the contractors and technical data received from the contractors.

The documentation required to enable DTR and KHP to complete the certification exercise was submitted by the contractors on October 8.

The supervisor found, included in the documentation, correspondence which showed that incorrect information and technical data had been submitted during the course of the works by the contractors’ foreign engineer on the bridge’s post-tension operations.

The foreign engineer in a March 22 email to the contractors said that the supervisor had directed the contractors to tension a number of the bridge tendons to 105% but the foreign engineer said he would pretend to have carried such works during the Easter period when he was sure that the supervisor would not be present on site, and consequently doctor the values of the recorded elongation of the tendons on the documents submitted to the supervisor.

The instructions issued by the supervisor followed a previous exercise, which was carried out under the constant supervision of DTR and KHP where the bridge tendons were stressed to approximately 100%.

Following the discovery of this email and the accompanying technical document, the supervisor established that the bridge tendons had effectively only been stressed to approximately 100%.

DRT and KHP confirmed that the structural integrity of the bridge was not compromised by the missing additional post-tensioning requested, but that such an omission may have a minimal affect on the durability of the structure, which was intended to have a design life of 80 years, and possibly increase the costs of maintenance of the bridge.

It was explained that the post tensioning (stretching) exercise was carried out by specialised equipment which the contractors were bound to supply.

Once the gauge recorded the established stress, the tendons were cut, anchored and grouted. Consequently the supervisor had no technical means to verify the final value of the tension elongation, unless he was physically present during such an exercise.

After verifying that the structural integrity was not compromised, DTR and KHP held a meeting with the Network Infrastructure Directorate on October 13 when the supervisor in the presence of a senior architect who was also monitoring the works on behalf of the ADT, gave the chairman of NID an explicit account of the information, conclusions, and supporting documentation.

DTR and KHP said they regretted the erroneous impression emanating from the title given in a statement issued yesterday by the Infrastructure Ministry and subsequent reports which stated that the suspicion of fraud was directly linked to the certification of the bridge, thus implying wrongdoing on the part of DTR and KHP as the consortium entrusted with certification.