Two men have been acquitted of bribery and corruption charges in the granting of a €30m IT contract for Mater Dei Hospital.

The proceedings were instituted by the police in 2007 against Noel Xuereb and Pierre Mercieca.

Mr Xuereb, of St Julian’s, was an employee of MITTS, the government IT agency seconded to the IT ministry as a core information systems manager and had served on the tender’s evaluation committee. Mr Mercieca, from Attard, was a consultant for Inso, a member of the AME consortium, which was one of the bidders. 

The investigation began after Mr Grech voiced suspicions.

In its conclusions, the court, presided by Magistrate Francesco Depasquale, observed that this case was launched in the wake of suspicions by Claudio Grech, who is now a Nationalist MP, and who at the time chaired the core evaluation committee.

His suspicions had been aroused after the original preferred bidder was excluded because of financial difficulties abroad, which had been highlighted by Noel Xuereb. 

The police carried out an investigation, without a magisterial inquiry, and a series of documents and computers were seized.

The prosecution had concluded that since Mr Mercieca had in his possession tender documents with comments by Mr Xuereb, this meant that the tender's secrets had been divulged. 

The prosecution had also suspected corruption because Mr Mercieca had given a fireplace to Noel Xuereb, allegedly as a gift in recognition for assistance in the hospital IT project tender. 

The proceedings were instituted at the request of Mr Grech.

However, the court said, none of the evidence backed the imputations based on Claudio Grech's suspicions. 

The fireplace had not been a gift but had been paid for.

Furthermore, as a long-serving core project manager at MITTS, it was Mr Xuereb's duty to ensure that the bidders were up to date with the government's requirements and that the final product met specifications. 

Doing his duty

The evidence showed that Mr Xuereb had been doing his duty. Although he had initially approved another company to become the preferred bidder, once he learnt of that company's financial and legal problems abroad, he informed the Core Evaluation Committee and Mr Grech, and he was eventually proven right that handing the contract to that company was a risk for the government. 

The evidence showed that Mr Grech, as chairman of the Core Evaluation Committee, then chose to impose new conditions on the new preferred bidder, against the advice of the Director of Contracts.

At one point, Mr Grech insisted that the preferred bidder should produce a bank guarantee of €4 million even though this was not in the original tender requirements.

It was only through Noel Xuereb's insistence with Pierre Mercieca that the tenderer accepted to give a bank guarantee, albeit for a lower amount, despite their original protests.

Despite all additional requests having been settled with the preferred bidder, and when the contract was at the brink of being signed, Mr Grech suddenly voiced his suspicions and, along with IT minister Austin Gatt, called the police to investigate. 

Smaller contract for eliminated bidder

As a result the government suspended and eventually cancelled the tender. It was then replaced by a much smaller project which again involved the company that had originally been eliminated because of its problems.

The court said that the evidence showed there had been no act of corruption by Noel Xuereb and Pierre Mercieca and there was no private gain.

As to the correspondence that allegedly existed between the accused, the court said that there had been correspondence by all parties, including Claudio Grech himself. No tender secrets had been disclosed by Mr Xuereb, and Mr Mercieca never attempted to corrupt anyone.

Both men were therefore acquitted.

Joseph Giglio was counsel to Mr Xuereb and Manuel Mallia was counsel to Mr Mercieca.