Almost two-thirds of the stone cut from a Qala quarry to clad the new Parliament building in Valletta failed rigorous tests and a safety certification cannot be issued, The Sunday Times of Malta has learnt.
CFF Filiberti, the Italian company, which cut and shaped the stonework, has accused the Maltese nominated supplier, Q Stone Ltd, of not only supplying inferior quality stone and falling back on its consignments, but also of hiding the quality tests it commissioned while the project was still under way. The delays in supply and the inferior quality of the material provided led to considerable additional costs and expenses, CFF Filiberti said.
Q Stone Ltd, a subsidiary company of the Halmann Vella Group, had been appointed, following a tendering process, to supply stone blocks to cover the building facade which it quarried from a site in Ta’ Klement, Qala.
It had bound itself to provide 200 cubic meters of stone a month for CFF Filiberti to ship to Parma, Italy. It would then be cut into various forms, processed and shipped back to Malta.
From the outset, Q Stone Ltd had fallen behind on the consignments providing far less stone than the thresholds mentioned in the purchase order, the Italian company said in its court application.
The Qala stone was used for the internal finishes and to clad the two blocks on the outside of Parliament House.
Now that we managed to obtain the test results that were hidden from us, we can conclude that most of the stone supplied by Q Stone Ltd was not suitable for the project and therefore we cannot certify it- Filiberti
CFF Filiberti managing director, Michele Filiberti, told The Sunday Times of Malta when contacted that most of the stone blocks were not suitable for the project and could therefore not be certified. “Now that we managed to obtain the test results that were hidden from us, we can conclude that most of the stone supplied by Q Stone Ltd was not suitable for the project and therefore we cannot certify it because more than 60 per cent of the stone they supplied was not according to specifications,” he said.
He could not say whether the stone that was eventually used to clad the Parliament building actually met the standards or not because they had not been privy to the test results carried out at the time of the project.
The tests carried out periodically by Q Stone at a Maltese independent laboratory, Terracore, revealed that the vast majority of stone did not pass the tests to determine the maximum load per unit area.
Filiberti says it had to purchase additional stone and material and was constrained to process almost double the number of stone blocks required because the quality was inferior, the stone had cracks and holes and did not fit the aesthetical requirements of the client.
The company’s lawyers, Andrew Grima and Franco Galea, stressed that CFF Filiberti was not aware of the extent of the qualitative deficiencies of the stone.
CFF Filiberti is claiming it is owed some €3.4 million for work and is facing serious financial difficulties and possibly even bankruptcy. This would entail the loss of some 50 jobs.
Reacting to the story published today, Q Stone's lawyer, Maxilene Pace, said CFF Filiberti's claims are presently sub judice and there are various claims which have to be addressed by the Maltese law courts.
Dr Pace also said that Q Stone is still within the legal parameters to reply to these allegations, which is the 20 day time frame allowed by law.
She said her clients had instituted various court cases against Filiberti, mainly to be paid for its services.