Minister scraps call for interest in e-learning project after claims of conflict of interest

IT Minister Austin Gatt said in parliament today that he had stopped the adjudication of a public call for expressions of interest for a strategic partnership for the provision of an e-learning solution.

The call closed on November 11 last year.

Dr Gatt said nine submissions had been made and four persons - three from MITA (the government IT agency) and one from the Ministry of Education, were appointed to adjudicate. They were assisted by a technical adviser and a financial adviser from MITA. The minister said he was never consulted on these appointments.

UK company IT Consulting Services was engaged to assist in the process after a call for tenders. It appointed three persons for the purpose - Tom McMullan, Owen Lynch and Laurie O'Donnel.

The offers were submitted by a consortium formed of Benchmark Softec (P) Ltd., Excelsoft Technologies Pvt. Ltd. and Digital Borneo Ltd, Consortium; Blackboard International B.V. and Loqus Solutions Ltd. Consortium; eLP + Consortium; Fronter as; Hewlett-Packard International Trade B.V.; IBM Malta Ltd.; IX Consortium; Megabyte Ltd. & SIVECO Romania SA Consortium; and Young Digital Planet SA.

On December 10, the evaluation board was told that Mr O'Donnell had commercial links with a company that was a sub-contractor of one of the bidders, and he was therefore excluded from the process.

On February 12, 2010 the board completed its report to the MITA CEO, who sent it back, requesting technical clarifications.

The report was sent back on April 9.

On March 5, the MITA chairman was informed by a representative of Digital Borneo Ltd, that the consulting company may have a conflict of interest with one of the bidders, and the exclusion of Mr O'Donell had not necessarily removed the possibility of such conflict. This was the first time that the chairman learnt of this potential conflict of interest. He immediately asked the CEO to investigate the allegation. This was also the first time he learnt of this matter.

The CEO requested legal advice, which was given on March 22. The advice was that the Board of Evaluation had acted correctly when it excluded Mr O'Donnell and the process was therefore technically not vitiated.

However, the legal advice also pointed out that although the procedure was legally correct, there could be grounds for speculation that Mr O'Donnell's exclusion was not enough and the consulting company as a whole should have been excluded.

It was therefore recommended that its report should be ignored and a review made.

The Evaluation Board sent its second report to the CEO on April 9.

Dr Gatt said the MITA board of directors had a meeting with him on April 28 when the chairman and the CEO explained the facts of the case. They explained that although everything was legally correct, there was a risk that the governance structure was not such as to guarantee the independence of the two foreign consultants.

Dr Gatt said that he had, there and then, instructed the board to stop the whole process and issue a fresh call for expressions of interest, despite knowing of the project delays as a result.

Dr Gatt insisted that he had been the one to decide on issuing a fresh call, immediately on hearing about the case and without waiting to read the legal advice and without even knowing who was short listed or who had actually submitted offers.

In his declaration, Dr Gatt noted that Opposition MP Evarist Bartolo had already written about the case. He said the Labour MP had speculated 'maliciously' and called on him to substantiate his claims. He also called on him to declare what contact he had had with any of the bidders.