Education Minister Evarist Bartolo has again been invited to check his private Hotmail account after declaring in Parliament that an article on The Sunday Times of Malta was “a lie from beginning to end”.

The Sunday Times of Malta quoted an e-mail sent by Joseph Cauchi to the minister thanking him for the work he was given in various Gozo schools over the past three years. He also asked that Edward Caruana – who is being investigated in connection with allegations of fraud and corruption – should return to oversee Gozo projects for the sake of school projects and the (Labour) party.

In 2014, Mr Cauchi, a Gozitan contractor, was given government protection to testify on claims of wrongdoing by former Gozo minister Giovanna De-bono’s husband.

Replying to accusations by Opposition leader Simon Busuttil that the item which appeared on The Sunday Times of Malta showed that the government had “bought” Mr Cauchi through public contracts, Mr Bartolo said in Parliament the article in question was “a fabrication”.

At the same parliamentary sitting, shadow education minister George Pullicino asked Mr Bartolo to check whether he had received on his Hotmail account the e-mail in which Mr Cauchi thanked him for the jobs he had been given and to bring back Mr Caruana.

“Let me make your work a little bit easier,” Mr Pullicino told the minister. “Please check whether Mr Cauchi sent you an e-mail on your private Hotmail account in the week between May 12 and 19, 2016,” Mr Pullicino said.

He said that under Mr Bartolo’s stewardship, the Foundation for Tomorrow’s Schools had been an example of how public funds were being squandered.

He said that since Mr Bartolo took over the FTS, it had doubled its employees from 20 to 41 when payments on external consultants increased from €31,000 in 2012 to €260,000 in 2016.

Mr Pullicino also referred to Mr Bartolo’s decision to overrule the FTS that did not want to pay a contractor who it felt was making unreasonable claims on work carried at a school in Ħandaq, Qormi.

Saying he was approached by the director of the company involved – Avantgarde – not to keep mentioning the case in Parliament, Mr Pullicino said Mr Bartolo had signed a memo doubling the costs of a tiling tender contested by the FTS.

He said that although the FTS management did not want to pay for claims on unapproved material, overvalued work and items that were not actually delivered, Mr Bartolo met the contractor a few days after the election and decided to pay an extra €418,000 on a tender that was worth just over €500,000.

Mr Pullicino said the situation at the FTS was so bad that 11 senior officials had resigned in the past weeks, including CEO Philip Rizzo who had been chosen by Mr Bartolo, because they could not take the wrongdoing any longer.

He said that after an invitation by Mr Rizzo to consult his private e-mails, Mr Bartolo had conceded that it was true that he had been advised on irregularities by Mr Caruana, who he had engaged on a person-of-trust basis, much earlier than he had originally declared in the public.

Mr Pullicino said he expected Mr Bartolo to check his e-mails and report back.

Education Minister Evarist Bartolo said the article in The Sunday Times of Malta was “a fabrication”.

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