Over the past months St Vincent de Paul, that serves as a hospital and a home for the elderly and disabled, has come under the spotlight as a result of suspicious multi-million deals that were reached for the provision of services to this institution by the responsible ministry.
On July 20 a notice was published in The Malta Government Gazette announcing that in November 2017 a €273.6-million direct order for the building of a 500-bed extension at SVP was awarded to a consortium formed by a subsidiary of the db Group and James Caterers.
More than a month after the news was broken by this newspaper, the parliamentary secretary responsible for the home, Anthony Agius Decelis came out denying that such a direct order had been awarded. He blamed the management that publishes the gazette for allegedly erroneously publishing the relevant notice as a direct order.
In actual fact a tender with a value of €58 million had been awarded to the mentioned consortium for the construction of a kitchen and the supply of meals to residents and staff at SVP for a 10-year period, despite a cheaper bid having been made by a competing consortium.
The government’s alibi was that the choice was based on a clause in the call issued in November 2015 that bound the winning bidder to make an additional offer compatible with the requirements of SVP.
The db Group and James Caterers consortium had offered to build a 200-bed facility extension within the institution, which was later elevated to a 500-bed one at a cost of €30 million. On its part the government inflated the value of the tender to a record figure exceeding a quarter of a billion euros and further agreed to pay the consortium to manage the extension.
The government refused to publish the contract under the pretext of commercial secrecy. The deal is being currently investigated by the National Audit Office, following requests by the leader of the Opposition Adrian Delia and Democratic Party MP Godfrey Farrugia.
The respect that Malta once enjoyed internationally has been negatively affected by the serious misconduct of certain ministers and persons of their trust
More recently this newspaper revealed that at the time that the ministry was headed by Michael Farrugia, it had awarded a direct order to a cleaning company by the name of X-Clean Ltd to provide cleaning services at SVP. The company’s sole director was Denis Xuereb from Naxxar, and the company was owned by another cleaning company called Crystal Clean Ltd that was registered only a few months before the direct order was given.
The parent company belonged to Kristina Xuereb who was incidentally also from Naxxar, that forms part of Farrugia’s electoral constituency.
On April 1, 2015, before X-Clean Ltd had even been registered by the registry of companies, SVP’s CEO Josianne Cutajar had authorised Denis Xuereb to start providing cleaning services to the institution.
After the maximum legally permitted period of six months for the mentioned direct order had expired, X-Clean Ltd continued to be awarded a contract every few months without a competitive tender being issued, in breach of public procurement rules.
The company has already received more than €7 million in direct orders over a three-year period. This exceeds reasonable payment for the provision of cleaning services to the institution. Agius Decelis has maintained complete silence.
The unorthodox day-to-day management practices carried out at SVP have further accentuated the negative impact that these suspicious deals have left on the institution.
The SVP administration is known to maintain a weak control over employees with good contacts to persons in powerful positions.
There has been a consistent reluctance by the administration to take action against employees with leanings to the Labour Party over serious duty related shortcomings.
Even cases of forged signatures to cover unauthorised absences from work have remained unacted upon.
I have spoken publicly on different occasions about various forms of abuse of authority at SVP, where a different yardstick has been used in the exercise of disciplinary control.
I have also brought these same cases to the attention of the Public Service Commission, where I submitted that Cutajar had abused or misused her delegated authority or has failed to exercise proper disciplinary control over employees falling under her direct responsibility.
Nine and a half months from the date that I submitted these cases to the PSC, the commission wrote to inform me that it had concluded its investigation and found that Cutajar had acted correctly in all cases. However, when I requested the commission to supply me with a copy of the investigation report, its short answer was that my request could not be acceded to.
Subsequently, Godfrey Farrugia submitted a parliamentary question to Prime Minister Joseph Muscat requesting him to lay a copy of the report of the PSC on the Table of the House of Representatives.
Here again, an evasive answer was given. Muscat said that the PSC had no such report to present.
By means of another parliamentary question, Farrugia asked the responsible minister why approval was given to Cutajar to continue to work as a private doctor and run her private clinic, after she was appointed in her position of trust as SVP’s CEO with effect from June 1, 2013.
Farrugia contended that such approval was given in violation of Code of Ethics provisions, since such work creates a private or personal interest sufficient to influence or appear to influence the objective exercise of Cutajar’s official duties.
In his reply, Minister Michael Falzon attempted to justify the authorisation given to Cutajar to continue carrying out her private work by arguing that her role as CEO of SVP is of an administrative nature and therefore completely different from her private medical work.
This is a fallacious argument because Cutajar holds overall power in SVP, which puts her at an advantageous position over the rest of the medical practitioners in Malta where it comes to the provision of services for private patients at the institution she heads.
The Maltese people are entitled to expect the highest standards of integrity and ethical conduct from ministers, parliamentary secretaries and their appointees in positions of trust. A right step in this direction has been taken by the recent enforcement of the law on standards in public life and the appointment of George Hyzler Jr as Commissioner for Standards in Public Life.
The law vests its power in the commissioner for the investigation of breaches of statutory or ethical duties committed by these government officials in their public life. However, Hyzler is precluded from from investigating cases that have taken place before his office was officially set up on October 30. Consequently, several holders of high public offices would be able to escape scrutiny over past cases.
Much time had already been lost before the law took effect. It was left hanging as a Bill for three years and then for a further seven months following its enactment. And more time will elapse before the commissioner’s office is adequately staffed to be in a position to carry out its functions in the efficient manner that one would like.
The respect that Malta once enjoyed internationally has been negatively affected by the serious misconduct of certain ministers and persons of their trust, as well as by their lack of accountability to the general public.
The only way to regain this respect is by controlling corruption, increasing transparency and accountability, and improving governance. This can only be attained by means of a change in moral and ethical attitudes.
Denis Tanti is a former assistant director (industrial and employment relations) in the Ministry for Health.
This is a Times of Malta print opinion piece