Investigations carried out by officials of the National Audit Office have found that no independent testing was made of concrete used for a Child Development Centre in Gozo.

The National Audit Office said this evening that the tender for the building of the Child Development Centre specified that components and materials, including concrete, reinforced steel, franka stone and hollow concrete blocks, were to
be delivered on site in time to allow the Supervisor to proceed with their acceptance.

The latter was also required to inspect, examine, measure and test the components,  materials and workmanship, to ensure the requisite quality and quantity.

Audit testing revealed that:

Over a period of 17 months, -  from 22 July 2013 up to 31 December 2014, 10 concrete test certificates requested by the contractor were issued by an accredited laboratory, appointed by the contractor himself, on samples taken over a nine-month period, between 29 August 2013 and 19 May 2014.

However, no independent tests were ordered by the Contracting Authority to corroborate results.

Furthermore, not even a formal comfort letter was issued by an Architect on behalf of EGRD, to confirm that the quality of concrete was in agreement to that
specified by the tender conditions.

The aforementioned test certificates, endorsed by the contractor’s Architect,
were only received by the Directorate towards the end of June 2015, by which
time the payments up to 24 February 2015, amounting to €947,016, had already been issued to the contractor.

It also transpired that, over the seven-month period between 30 May and December 2014, no samples were tested of the concrete delivered on site.