The Valletta local council has been found to have favoured city residents in the call for quotations for public contracts, a practice the Local Governance Board described as “unacceptable”.

The board found that the council had issued a call for quotations for cleaning services which had a discriminatory clause, expecting the service provider to be or operate from Valletta.

Moreover, in another instance, it hired a security officer instead of a warden to look after traffic in an area where there was a crane, specifically because he was from Valletta.

The discrimination charge was one of the board’s conclusions on a long list of accusations made by the Local Government Department in connection with the council’s alleged wrongdoings.

Referring specifically to the call for tenders for cleaning the capital city, the board drew the council’s attention to the fact that such clauses “give the impression that they are there to benefit certain people who live in Valletta or operate from Valletta”.

Any service the council needs must be open to everyone and there should be no discrimination of any sort

But Valletta mayor Alexiei Dingli defended the council’s decision, saying this was done in residents’ best interest.

“We requested that the contractor opens a customer care office in Valletta to offer a better service to our residents whereby they can go to the contractor’s office to complain about cleanliness issues and discuss directly with the contractor,” he said.

Alexiei Dingli.

“Based on our past experience, this approach works much better because you’re directing complaints to the source. We also opened a customer care number specific to cleansing issues. We still want to retain a high level of cleanliness and improve our customer care so we will seek advice from the department on this matter,” he said.

He also clarified that, in the end, the contract was not awarded to a Valletta resident.

On the engagement of a security officer instead of a warden, the council claimed the warden company had not provided it with a warden to control traffic. But the board noted that in any case the security officer was hired without a public call and was chosen because he was a Valletta resident.

“This is unacceptable. Any service the council needs must be open to everyone and there should be no discrimination of any sort,” the board said in its report.

Even in this case, Prof. Dingli defended the council decision, saying it had employed security guards because there were no wardens available.

“We did not want to stop the works in Valletta because of the lack of wardens. We complained several times through our region but our complaints fell on deaf ears and we were never given any direction.

“It is also positive to note that the Board of Governance recognised the fact that Valletta is a special case and suggested that if we are in that situation again we should ask the other warden companies,” he said.

Prof. Dingli did not explain why the council had chosen a Valletta resident for the job.

The board also investigated the department’s claims regarding the Valletta access fees, known as the CVA scheme, and the fact that the council did not appear to have a paper trail of receipts. It also probed the fact that the council had made mistakes in its payments to Transport Malta.

While recommending that the council seek a written agreement with CVA Technologies Ltd on the cooperation between the two entities, the board suggested the council should start charging for allowing part of its premises to be used for CVA collections.

I think some of these issues arise from the fact that we were not given proper guidance

Prof. Dingli said the council had already acted on this and had written to the company operating the system.

Other claims the board investigated included councillors’ mobile allowances and honorarium, the council’s minutes – which were not being uploaded online – and some bank accounts the council had opened that contained little money.

It also investigated an €8,000 withdrawal but the board was satisfied with the council’s explanation that this was used to pay employees’ wages after its assets were frozen due to a pending court case.

Prof. Dingli said the report highlighted aspects which the council could have done better had it been given proper guidance.

“I think some of these issues arise from the fact that we were not given proper guidance. The cases which we encounter in Valletta are very different from other localities and this is highlighted in the report.

“Thus we appreciate the fact that the report is giving us a number of recommendations which we intend to follow,” he said.