The Education Minister this morning filed libel proceedings against Times of Malta over an article published on Wednesday.

Evarist Bartolo is alleging that the article entitled "Minister's decision 'doubled tender costs for college work" is defamatory in his regard and was intended to tarnish his reputation.

The article concerned tiling works carried out by Avantgarde Projects Ltd at St Ignatius College in Qormi whereby, according to a technical report drawn up by the FTS management, the contractor was originally owed €540,000 but ended up receiving more than €1 million.

The Education Minister had allegedly intervened in an attempt to reach an out of court settlement to the dispute between the FTS management and Avantgarde Projects Ltd.

In comments to the press, Mr Bartolo insisted that his intention was to solve issues left pending by the previous administration.

The application filed against daily editor Ray Bugeja and Ivan Camilleri as author, was signed by lawyers Edward Gatt and Mark Vassallo.

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