Almost two-thirds of the stone cut from a Qala quarry to clad the new Parliament building in Valletta have failed rigorous tests and a safety certification cannot be issued, The Sunday Times of Malta has learnt.
The Italian company responsible for the works has taken the matter to court, holding the Maltese stone supplier responsible for damages that could result from the delayed consignment of the material and the inferior quality product supplied.
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.
According to the terms and conditions established that in the purchase order signed in 2011, Q Stone Ltd 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 thousands of different forms and once processed the material would be 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.
The firm’s 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.
When asked, 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.
More than 60 per cent of the stone they supplied was not according to specifications
The tests carried out periodically by Q Stone at a Maltese independent laboratory, Terracore, revealed that the vast majority of stone tested failed to reach the minimum standard arising from the contract with the client – the Grand Harbour Regeneration Corporation and BIB Joint Venture – which was responsible for overseeing the works.
The stone examined did not pass the tests to determine the compressive strength of natural stone according to European standards. The compressive strength test indicates the maximum load per unit area.
“Midway through the project, the external consultants Bovis and the consultant engaged by the GHRC, namely Kevin Ramsey, confirmed the issues of inferior quality and the delays in consignment of material, and both had suggested that the stone be supplied from elsewhere because of the innate deficiencies and complications the stone from the Qala quarry presented.
“The quality of the stone affects the entire project. Q Stone was never in line with regard to the quantity of material supplied and most importantly the quality of the stone provided.
“As a consequence, we had to purchase additional stone and material and were 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,” he added.
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.
This was why it filed an application in court asking it to declare that Q Stone Limited had acted in bad faith and “fraudulently” hid the test results from it when the two parties were urged by the BIB Joint Venture to sign a settlement agreement in November 2013 for both sides to find a way to finalise the project.
In the application filed before the courts, CFF Filiberti said Q Stone ought to have known that the quality of the stone it supplied was not according to specifications of the client and was aware of the fact that the Italian company would not be in a position to certify the works to be able to receive what it is owed for the work undertaken.
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.
When contacted yesterday, GHRC chairman Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi said the claims being made related to an issue between CFF Filiberti and Q Stone Limited. “GHRC is completely extraneous to this commercial issue between these two companies.”
Asked whether GHRC would be investigating or commissioning its own experts to determine the quality of the stone actually used, Dr Zrinzo Azzopardi said: “GHRC will be taking all the necessary advice and act accordingly.”
Questions sent to Q Stone’s legal representative by e-mail yesterday remained unanswered by the time of going to print.