Updated 9.05am - Added FTS statement

The clash between the former CEO of the schools’ foundation and the education minister over alleged failure to tackle corruption claims got uglier yesterday as the two traded charges of lying.

Philip Rizzo stood by his claim that Evarist Bartolo had tried to dissuade him from formally reporting allegations of fraud and corruption at the Foundation for Tomorrow’s Schools, and challenged the minister to sue him.

Speaking through his lawyer, Arthur Azzopardi, he also suggested the minister take a close look at his personal Hotmail account before making any further statements. “The minister was informed via e-mail, SMS and verbally.”

Mr Rizzo says he flagged alleged wrongdoing by the minister’s canvasser at the end of last April and Mr Bartolo only took action in August. The latter insists he learnt of the claims in August and immediately took the matter to the police.

READ: Philip Rizzo's resignation letter

Mr Bartolo maintained the former CEO was lying and said he had told Mr Rizzo to go to the police with any information he had.

We are ready to go to court anytime. Bring it on

“I’ve been betrayed. If need be, I’m prepared to sue him,” Mr Bartolo said during a radio phone-in yesterday.

Dr Azzopardi told The Sunday Times of Malta that rather than bickering via the newspapers, Mr Bartolo should take the matter to court. “If he feels that my client is lying or is tarnishing his reputation, I challenge him to sue him for whatever he wants, be it libel or defamation.” 

In a defiant tone, he said that in order to make matters easier and faster, if the minister’s lawyer informed him when the case would be filed, they would turn up in court, so as not to waste any time with formal notifications.

“Whatever we said is well-documented, and there is written proof of everything. We are ready to go to court anytime. Bring it on,” Dr Azzopardi said.

READ: 'Bartolo must resign', says PN leader Busuttil

“The minister had better check his personal Hotmail account, because whatever we are saying is all documented. Hillary Clinton and her personal e-mails cost her an election,” he added.

“Anything more than an ‘I did nothing about it’ from the minister is a lie. Now, if he did nothing because he did not know how to handle it, or because people around him lied to him or because he is in any way part of it is something which must be determined by the police. Suspicions alone are not enough, but these are the three possible scenarios,” Dr Azzopardi said.

Mr Rizzo’s claims of corruption and fraud by Mr Bartolo’s canvasser, Edward Caruana, have been passed on to the police and the Permanent Commission against Corruption. The Internal Audit and Investigations Department, an independent government agency, is conducting its own investigation.

Mr Caruana, who was appointed at the FTS following Labour’s return to power in March 2013 by Mr Bartolo as a person of trust, is the brother of the Education Ministry’s permanent secretary, Joseph Caruana.

In a damning resignation letter published late on Friday, Mr Rizzo accused Mr Bartolo of not telling the truth, knowing about wrongdoing by his person of trust for a long time and trying to dissuade him from taking it further.

“Mr Bartolo has known the true reasons since the last week of April 2016, and he repeatedly attempted to dissuade me from formalising my discovery of serious multiple wrongdoings (committed primarily by a member of your own family) until the last day of August 2016,” Mr Rizzo said in his resignation letter to the permanent secretary.

Dr Azzopardi yesterday said the Education Minister had failed to specify which corruption cases he had referred to the police, since there were a number raised by Mr Rizzo.

According to Dr Azzopardi, Mr Rizzo raised a corruption claim by a contractor, Joe Carabott, saying that Edward Caruana had asked him for a three per cent commission and a container of tiles.

Dr Azzopardi said that Mr Bartolo had dealt with the matter by meeting Mr Carabott personally and then telling Mr Rizzo that Mr Carabott had denied the claim. This happened around mid-August.

Mr Rizzo also flagged possible wrongdoing in the purchase of cement directly by the FTS, which is a project leader rather than an entity that purchases supplies.

Another claim was over bills for more than €25,000 for toilets at the Gozo sixth form. Mr Rizzo says he refused to sign the cheques and that when informed about possible wrongdoing, appointed auditor Paul Bonello to investigate. According to Mr Rizzo, Mr Bonello concluded that he was right.

Mr Bartolo has known the true reasons since the last week of April 2016

Mr Bartolo has previously confirmed that following this internal investigation ordered at the end of August, there was prima facie evidence that Mr Rizzo’s claims against Mr Caruana were true and that these were passed on to the police.

In another case, before Mr Rizzo’s time, a Gozitan contractor, Giovann Vella, claimed Edward Caruana had asked for a €30,000 bribe to release some payments owed to him on works related to an extension of the Gozo sixth form.

Despite the allegations being made before Mr Bartolo, the ministry’s permanent secretary did not report the corruption claim to the police. The police did not investigate the claim but instituted charges against Mr Vella for tarnishing Edward Caruana’s reputation.

Following evidence in ongoing court proceedings, the police have now concluded their investigation into this case and are awaiting advice from the Attorney General on how to proceed.

Minister’s strong rebuttal

Evarist Bartolo has vehemently denied that he attempted to cover up for his canvasser in his Rabat constituency.

He told The Sunday Times of Malta yesterday that he was made aware of the allegations by Mr Rizzo at the end of August 2016 and not April 2016.

“Saying that I tried to dissuade anyone from reporting wrongdoing (not just in this case but throughout my life) is a lie.”

Mr Bartolo added that on September 1, he “clearly” told Mr Rizzo to report all allegations to the police.

“I took immediate steps by ordering an internal inquiry and by informing the police and the Internal Audit and Investigations Department. Any official in the public sector does not and should not need the approval of anyone, especially that of a minister, to report an allegation. The ministry was the first to report the allegations to the police.”

PM stands by his minister

In reply to questions from this newspaper on whether the Prime Minister expected Mr Bartolo to step down pending the outcome of the investigation, a spokesman for the OPM said: “Evarist Bartolo acted correctly and allegations are being investigated upon his reports to the police.

“He has also reported the case to the Commission Against Corruption and IAID (the Internal Audit and Investigations Department).”

FTS directors insist Rizzo had their backing

In a statement, the FTS chairman and board of directors said Mr Rizzo was "grossly incorrect" in suggesting they had not backed him in his efforts to report allegations of impropriety by Mr Caruana. 

In his resignation letter, Mr Rizzo had alleged that FTS chairman Emanuel Camilleri had declined to call in OPM investigators to look into the claims. 

But in today's statement, the chairman and board of directors said they had been "unanimously and unequivocally fully supportive of Mr Rizzo taking the matters through all the necessary channels.”

How events unfolded, according to Philip Rizzo

■ April 22, 2016. The COO of the Foundation for Tomorrow’s Schools, Tony Muscat, raises queries on invoices submitted by Edward Caruana, brother of the ministry’s permanent secretary, for FTS’ payment approval.

■ April 25. COO is pressured by Caruana such that he suffers chest pains and is eventually hospitalised; CEO Philip Rizzo informs the minister.

■ April 26. Rizzo asks permanent secretary Joe Caruana himself to approve his brother Edward’s payment requests. Joe Caruana refuses, saying newly appointed CEO Rizzo should approve. (Note: the invoices related to work allegedly undertaken eight months earlier than Rizzo’s involvement with the FTS. Rizzo’s approval authority limit was €2,500, whilst these invoices totalled €25,000, which was within Joe Caruana’s remit.)

■ May 20. Architect (a Caruana direct appointee) chases the payment of invoices that she herself has certified as ‘true and correct’ but which eventually proved to be forgeries.

■ June 23. Upon the same day of availability of irrefutable third-party evidence that the invoices were forgeries, Rizzo sends copy of minutes of a meeting with Gozitan contractors to the minister containing the million-dollar question: “Do I still take no action?” (as the minister had instructed Rizzo since end April to ‘play down’ the matter).

■ July 7. Minister replies to “Do I still take no action?” verbally to Rizzo in the minister’s office when they are alone at minister’s request after a meeting with Marlon Brincat, a contractor and Naxxar Local Council member, on a wholly different matter. Minister says: “My advice is to keep the Caruana forged documents up your sleeve so that they are available to you if you ever need to use them in your own defence one day in the future.”

■ August 31. After repeat vilifications by the Caruanas, Rizzo ‘talks’ to Bartolo by e-mail, threatening he and a number of senior managers would resign if Edward Caruana remains an employee.

■ September 1. Minister changes his direction completely from “Rizzo say nothing” to putting the onus on Rizzo (rather than on the FTS board, which has been kept informed by Rizzo, or the FTS chairman, who was its sole legal representative, which was Edward Caruana’s employer) to do the ‘dirty work’ of reporting the perm sec’s brother and the minister’s own long-time canvasser (Edward Caruana) to the police.

Rizzo says the timing is wrong because Joe Carabott, the contractor who made allegations to both the FTS CEO and COO of a second bribery attempt by Edward Caruana, would have to be a key witness and Carabott is critical to the timely completion of the school project at Swatar (Rabat), which had been promised publically as opening for students on September 26, 2016.

■ September 7. FTS chairman Emanuel Camilleri refuses to call IAID to investigate the multiple economic crimes that Rizzo suspects to have been committed at FTS over the past three years.

■ September 10. Bartolo confesses to Rizzo in writing that ‘the steps I took recently [only 10 days earlier in fact] should have been taken long ago’.