Two businessmen were yesterday charged with attempting to influence an €18.5 million contract covering another phase of the Pender Gardens project in St Julian’s.

Pierre Mercieca, a 55-year-old from Attard who is self-employed, pleaded not guilty to trading in influence on and before May 30 last year while Josef Dimech, 35, a company director from Ta’ Xbiex denied being an accomplice.

Mr Mercieca is the same businessman who had been charged in court in 2007 over the adjudication of the IT system installation contract at Mater Dei Hospital.

In that case, Mr Mercieca, who worked part-time for one of the bidders, was charged with bribing Noel Xuereb, a member of the adjudicating committee. The case is still pending.

Testifying before Magistrate Aaron Bugeja yesterday, police inspector Ian Abdilla said the police had been approached by George Borg, of GP Borg Construction, regarding two strange encounters he had with a rival bidder and a man he did not even know.

He said the encounters were over a tender his company had submitted for the T1 and T2 towers and Block 17 at Pender Gardens covering construction, apertures and water and electricity.

Pender Gardens had received three bids from GP Borg, JAM consortium composed of Attard Brothers, JS Dimech and Mekkanika Limited and another bid from another consortium formed by Elbros Limited.

Mr Borg received a call early on May 29 from Mr Dimech, a director of JS Dimech, a company that supplies aluminium. Mr Dimech went to his house and told him that the subcontractors Mr Borg had chosen were not favoured by Pender.

He panicked when he saw his consortium would probably lose the tender

Mr Borg claimed that Mr Dimech invited him to see how he could get out of the business agreements with his subcontractors and take him and Mekkanika on board so they could win the contract.

Later that day, around lunchtime, he was approached by a “well-dressed man” who told him that he knew his bid was €18.5 million, Elbros was bidding for €19.5 million and Attard Brothers bid for €21 million. The man told him to increase his bid by €400,000, of which he could give his subcontractors €60,000 “for the hassle” and instead bring Aluserv, who had partnered with Elbros, or JS Dimech and Mekkanika as subcontractors.

Inspector Abdilla said his investigations led him to Mr Mercieca who he had investigated and charged over the Mater Dei IT contract.

Mr Mercieca told police he had overheard a conversation Mr Dimech had while he was at his Sliema flat doing some work. He said he heard Mr Dimech saying how important the Pender contract was for his company as he otherwise needed to terminate jobs.

He said he knew Mr Borg as he had built a block adjacent to his house in Sliema and he wanted to help Mr Dimech.

He insisted he was never promised any compensation and neither was he hoping for any but just wanted to help Mr Dimech.

Mr Mercieca denied telling Mr Borg to increase his price but hinted to compensate his subcontractors for the termination of the business relationship and choose others.

Mr Dimech told the police he panicked when he saw his consortium would most probably lose the tender so he had spoken to Mr Borg to possibly include his company instead of the other subcontractors.

He insisted he did not know Mr Mercieca had gone to speak to Mr Borg a few hours after his meeting with him and “categorically denied” the possibility that Mr Mercieca had overheard his conversation as he is claiming.

Defence lawyer Kathleen Grima, appearing for Mr Mercieca, requested the court to ban the publication of her client’s name but this was turned down by the court.

The case continues.

Lawyer Arthur Azzopardi is also appearing for Mr Mercieca while lawyer Joe Giglio is appearing for Mr Dimech. Lawyer Franco Debono appeared parte civile for Mr Borg.