3.24pm Updated with Mcast reply
3.05pm Updated with PN reaction
The Malta College of Arts, Science and Technology has cancelled the award of an EU-funded tender after the call was issued late and the validity period for the funds expired.
The €70,910 tender was related to the development of the Institute of Applied Science and Business in Paola and consisted in the supply and installation of kitchen equipment to be used by students. The tender bids were submitted in August 2015.
Mcast informed the bidders it was cancelling the tender, as it had not managed to award the contract on time.
Sources close to the college said the tender had to be cancelled because the call for tender was issued late and, by the time it was about to be awarded, the validity period had lapsed and the EU funding was not available any longer.
In an internal report drawn up after objections were raised by the bidders, the Mcast management was criticised and ordered to investigate why the EU funds were no longer available.
It had to be cancelled because it was issued late, and by the time it was about to be awarded, the validity period had lapsed
A spokeswoman for Mcast was tight-lipped on the loss of the EU funds.
She would only confirm that the institute had received three offers from ECB Hotel and Catering Ltd, C&H Bartoli and The Catering Centre, with the offers ranging from €33,000 to over €50,000.
When asked to name who had been awarded the tender, the Mcast spokeswoman confirmed that it had been cancelled. She declined to comment further.
“The institute does not wish to comment further, as there are legal procedures in relation to this case.”
Mcast is the latest casualty in relation to problems with EU funding. Last week, the government admitted some EU funds for the Safi Aviation Park had not been used by the end of the eligibility period. The same happened with the Ċittadella project in Gozo, which was supposed to be concluded by the end of last year.
The Coast Road project was last year also hit by the loss of about €11 million in EU funds, as the European Commission decided that Transport Malta had not observed procurement rules. In this case, the government said it had utilised these funds elsewhere.
'We disbursed 98.55 per cent of funds': Mcast
An Mcast statement issued this afternoon highlighted the fact that the college had successfully disbursed 98.55 per cent of the EU funds allocated to it.
"This can only be considered as a very high disbursement rate," the statement said, adding that it was unfair to "highlight one relatively minor tender....without placing this into the whole perspective," Mcast principal Stephen Cachia said.
He noted that the cancelled tender amounted to just 0.12 per cent of the EU funds allocated to Mcast.
'Government lacks focus', says PN
In a statement, PN education spokeswoman Therese Comodini Cachia said the revelations reflected "serious shortcomings in the way education investment is being administered" in Malta.
She said that the government had justified the loss of Coast Road funds by saying the money would be spent on education projects instead.
"It seems that was all baseless talk," Dr Comodini Cachia said.
PN Foreign Affairs spokeswoman Roberta Metsola said the government lacked focus. "This isn't the first time the government has lost students valuable funding," she said.
ivan.camilleri@timesofmalta.com