In a dramatic twist which will add more fire to the seemingly spent controversy surrounding Manwel Dimech Bridge, the Roads Ministry yesterday asked the police to investigate suspected fraud in its certification.

An e-mail which, it appears, was sent by the Portuguese engineer responsible for certifying the bridge to his boss, the leading Italian contractor in the winning consortium, says, in Italian: "The project manager is requesting the tensioning of cables 1, 2, 3, 4, 5.1 and 6.1 to 105%. As agreed on the phone, I will pretend that I tensioned the cables during the Easter period (the supervisor is not at the site on these days) and will change the values a bit."

The supervisor referred to in the e-mail was Architect Robert Sant, who was engaged by the authority to oversee the certification process. In fact, he confirmed when contacted yesterday that he was the one to flag the alleged fraud to the authorities as soon as he came across the e-mail last week.

The e-mail was lodged with documentation which was actually handed over to him as part of the final verifications. "I had to vet all documentation and came across this e-mail. I alerted my German partners immediately and we verified that structurally there weren't any issues with the bridge.

"But obviously it seems there was misinformation at one stage," Mr Sant said.

In fact, despite the alleged fiddling of the certification, the authorities insist that the bridge is safe. On the other hand, maintenance costs may rise in order for the bridge to be able to last as long as previously estimated, 85 years.

Meanwhile, Roads Minister Austin Gatt relayed the report he received about the matter to the police.

The bridge was opened to traffic last April €2.3 million over budget, after more than 18 months of work and several delays, which all weighed on the career of former Transport Minister Jesmond Mugliett, who was responsible for the €6 million reconstruction.