A former chairman of the Foundation for Tomorrow’s Schools yesterday denied the agency had made commitments with a tiling contractor to pay for irregular and unauthorised work at a government school in Qormi.
“How could I commit myself to honour something that was not in line with the government’s procurement rules,” entrepreneur Raymond Fenech said.
“They [FTS and the Education Ministry] have all the files at their disposal and can look at all the correspondence with this particular problematic bidder. We could never pay for things that were not according to the tender. The FTS was not mine, after all,” said Mr Fenech, the chairman of the Tumas Group.
Reacting to the report, Mr Bartolo said: “There was a commitment to the contractor by the FTS chairman [Mr Fenech] under the previous administration to honour additional billing.”
I was the solution, not the problem in this episode.Now I am being hounded for solving a pending problem
Insisting that was not the case, Mr Fenech said that since the contractor, Joseph Vella, was claiming payment for works which, according to the FTS management, had not been done or were not according to the tender, he had suggested that a quantity surveyor acceptable to both sides re-measure all the work done and establish its real value.
However, this was not done and instead, the minister intervened “to solve the problem”, he said.
The Times of Malta is informed that, soon after Labour’s return to power in March 2013, Edward Caruana, who was recruited by Mr Bartolo on a person of trust basis and who is being investigated by the police in connection with fraud and abuse allegations, met Mr Vella in a bid to find a solution.
Mr Bartolo was yesterday asked if he had met Mr Vella about this, together with Mr Caruana, but no reply was forthcoming.
Accusing both the Opposition and journalists of having “a dishonest agenda” against him, Mr Bartolo said that, in this case, he had tried to solve a problem that he inherited from the Nationalist government.
“I was the solution and not the problem in this episode,” an evidently distressed Mr Bartolo told journalists.
“Now I am being hounded for solving a pending problem,” the minister said.
Asked whether what Mr Bartolo was saying was correct, Mr Fenech said he did not wish to enter into a controversy over the matter.
“All they have to do is measure the work done by this particular company. They can still do it today, because all the work can be seen. Then they can decide whether the contractor was right or wrong,” he said.
Mr Bartolo’s decision to ‘overrule’ the FTS management and order the agency to pay the contractor was taken following a memo submitted by his permanent secretary, Joe Caruana, who is Edward Caruana’s brother.
An internal report drawn up by the FTS management estimated the disputed claims by Mr Vella as reaching a maximum of €368,000.
Mr Caruana suggested in his memo to the minister that Avantgarde should be paid €418,000 to settle the issue without litigation. Payment was then settled.
ivan.camilleri@timesofmalta.com