Raymond Fenech, chairman of the Tumas Group and former chairman of the State’s school-building agency – Foundation for Tomorrow’s Schools (FTS) – on Thursday told a court it was not true that he had made a commitment to pay for contested works at a government school, as claimed by an Education Ministry spokeswoman.

Giving evidence during a libel case against the Times of Malta by Education Minister Evarist Bartolo, Mr Fenech denied the ministry’s statement and said he could not approve payments of public funds for such works.

“I was the chairman of the board and we were presented with claims from the contractor (Avantgarde Projects Ltd) for things he claimed he had done which did not have our approval,” Mr Fenech said.

“Since, there was a dispute, and this was normal in such works, I had suggested that a quantity surveyor would re-measure the works and if the contractor was found to be owed money, we would pay.”

Asked if his suggestion was taken up by the Education Ministry and the FTS, Mr Fenech said he did not know as he had left the foundation’s chairmanship while the dispute was still ongoing.

In an article published last year, the newspaper revealed that the Education Minister had ordered that a contractor be paid more than €400,000 over and above the value of the original tender, despite the objections of the Foundation for Tomorrow Schools.

The tender was for tiling works at the St Ignatius College in Ħandaq, Qormi by Avantgarde Projects Ltd.

Despite the continuous objections of the FTS, Mr Bartolo had endorsed a recommendation made by his ministry’s permanent secretary Joe Caruana, to overrule the FTS and settle the contractor’s claims for payments.

In justifying his action, Mr Bartolo had said that “there was a commitment to the contractor by the FTS chairman [Mr Fenech] under the previous administration to honour additional billing”, a commitment that was on Thursday denied.

Documents published by the Times of Malta show that Mr Bartolo’s decision, taken in October 2015, was at first resisted, even by the new chairman at the FTS, appointed by Mr Bartolo after the 2013 election.

However, the chairman, Samuel Formosa, was ordered by permanent secretary Joseph Caruana to abide by the minister’s order.

E-mails published by the Times of Malta show that Mr Caruana had informed his brother Edward, at the time an FTS official, of the minister’s decision to pay the extra claims of Avantgarde in a confidential e-mail.

Edward Caruana is currently facing corruption charges in court over abuse of FTS funds and fraud on school projects. The latter procedures are not connected to the St Ignatius College project.