The “mistake” that Active Ageing Parliamentary Secretary Anthony Agius Decelis says was made with regards to the publication of an official notice on a €274 million direct order remains uncorrected.

The notice in question appeared in The Malta Government Gazette on July 20.

No replies were forthcoming when the government was asked whether the parliamentary secretary had ordered the Department of Information, which publishes the Gazette, to rectify the mistake.

The Department of Information, which last week refused to assume responsibility for the mistake, was asked whether the mistake had been corrected and, if so, in which edition.

These questions also remain unanswered.

The DOI, which falls under the Office of the Prime Minister, insisted soon after Mr Agius Decelis’s statement that it had made no mistake. It had only published the information communicated to it by the different ministries, a spokesman said.

All corrections and amendments are also duly gazetted

He also made it clear that “all corrections and amendments are also duly gazetted”.

Mr Agius Decelis mentioned the “mistake” when asked why the government had decided to allocate a record direct order of €274 million to James Caterers and a subsidiary of the db Group.

After insisting this was not a direct order but rather, a “negotiated procedure” used in the allocation of public contracts, he said there had been a mistake in the official notice published in The Gazette.

The controversial tender has been in the news for weeks, since The Sunday Times of Malta reported a €60 million tender intended for the provision of meals and a new kitchen at St Vincent de Paul morphed into building a 500-bed extension with a value of €274 million.

The contract is expected to be investigated by the National Audit Office.

ivan.camilleri@timesofmalta.com