The bill for cleaning the government’s old people’s home in Luqa has more than doubled in three years, Times of Malta has learnt.

Documents seen by the newspaper show that until 2015, when a competitive tender used to be issued, the government paid about €150,000 a month for cleaning services at St Vincent de Paul Residence. However, the documents indicate, the monthly payments surpassed €300,000 when it was decided to allocate the job by direct order to a company registered in 2015.

Denis Xuereb, the sole director of X-Clean.Denis Xuereb, the sole director of X-Clean.

Under the terms of the pre-2015 tender, the government paid €6.03 an hour per cleaner for the cleansing services at the facility but now X-Clean Ltd was charging more than €13 an hour for the same sort of work,” sources close to the Parliamentary Secretariat for Active Aging told Times of Malta.

They noted that the higher rate was not reflected in the remuneration given to the cleaners engaged by the private company, who got less than €6 an hour.

Times of Malta reported that, in April 2015, X-Clean Ltd was given a direct order to take over cleaning services at the facility. The company, managed by Denis Xuereb, of Naxxar, was selected when Michael Farrugia, the present Home Affairs Minister, was politically responsible for the facility.

According to public procurement rules, contracts that surpass the €144,000 threshold must be awarded after a call for public tender. This did not happen in this case and X-Clean Ltd was engaged by direct contracts every few months without a public tender being issued.

The newspaper had also reported that the company, officially owned by another cleaning company belonging to Mr Xuereb’s daughter, was registered only after it was assigned the direct contract.

So far, Active Aging Parliamentary Secretary Anthony Agius Decelis has failed to reply to questions on this controversial contract.

Asked in Parliament by Democratic Party leader Godfrey Farrugia how many times the government had issued a direct order to X-Clean and to give details of the payments made, Family Affairs Minister Michael Falzon admitted that the company was not engaged through a tender.

He said it was selected following a quotation because the government wanted to stop the previous contractor after it was blacklisted for offences related to precarious work conditions.

Dr Falzon insisted the contract was given through a quotation according to public procurement rules as approved by the Department of Contracts.

Notices appearing on The Malta Government Gazette show the contracts given to X-Clean were awarded through direct orders. The Director General for Contracts, Anthony Cachia, was asked why no tender had been issued but no replied were forthcoming.

 

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