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Matthew Vella
The evidence given by former Foundation for Tomorrow’s Schools chief executive Alfred Ferrante to Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera in her inquiry held into the foundation’s procurement practices has unveiled new accounts into the events surrounding his dismissal when MaltaToday first reported the exorbitant number of direct orders that had been issued by the FTS.
Alfred Ferrante, employed as CEO of the foundation on a Lm12,000 per annum salary for three years, was sacked in October 2003 following reports first appearing in this newspaper on a pattern of indiscriminate direct orders issued to companies, a substantial number of which hailed from Education Minister Louis Galea’s constituencies.
According to Ferrante’s evidence, Minister Louis Galea would go directly onsite to speak to project managers entrusted with carrying out construction and maintenance works on schools, “to tell them ‘you do that for me… you do that’, directly to the contractors, since there was a certain familiarity (kunfidenza in Maltese) with these contractors, so he would give directions himself.
“I used to end up with a fait accompli irrespectively of whether I had approved or not the work itself. When they would call to get paid, I couldn’t issue payment since I had not approved the work.”
Ferrante’s evidence also detailed cases where certain companies had become regular recipients of direct orders. Amongst there were Rea Ceramics, which he said had been entrusted with a lot of work at the Attard primary school, under the name of the company itself or of other related companies of Anton Cutajar, from Birzebbugia, which forms part of Galea’s electoral constituencies.
These related companies included Ethel Ltd, which Ferrante said had taken payments without his authorisation for work conducted on the Attard primary. “In this case the Minister would go on site and give orders to project managers, not to the CEO but to the contractor. I used to be skipped and tell contractors ‘I don’t know how I can pay you’, but somebody else would.”
Both Rea Ceramics and Ethel Ltd were paid a total of Lm18,523 in 2002.
In another case, JB & Associates, operating as project managers for the Karwija school, had been paid more than Lm10,000 in March. According to procurement regulations, direct orders to the same recipient cannot exceed more than Lm10,000 in a period of six months. Ferrante said he did not know whether the payment had been made with the permission of the Ministry of Finance, which was responsible to authorise such payments exceeding Lm10,000 or where direct orders had to be issued urgently.
From information seen by this newspaper, JB & Associates were paid a total of Lm8,912 for direct orders invoiced on the 8 and 11 March 2003.
George Papagiorcopulo, who today has been reinstated as acting chief executive, was reported by Alfred Ferrante as having consulted the FTS on matters of procurement, explaining how direct orders could be issued without exceeding Lm10,000 in six months.
However, the role of a procurement manager never existed in the FTS, save for the brief employment of a man called ‘Natal’, but whose surname Ferrante could not recall.
Ferrante said the foundation had never sought the services of a lawyer for an interpretation of procurement regulations. However, he would not answer when asked by Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera whether direct orders would be split up into smaller orders so that they would not exceed the Lm2,500 threshold.
On October 10, some two weeks after MaltaToday had reported on the exorbitant number of direct orders which had been issued by the foundation, Ferrante was called for a meeting with the FTS board of directors.
Ferrante said that Peter Fenech, a director, had told him the foundation was up for restructuring but did not how to decide on his future role. “I told him, ‘let me save you the pain, basically you are asking me to resign?’ And he told me ‘yes, that’s the best step, or else you face dismissal’. And then I asked them on what grounds, because I believed I was a person of integrity, honest, and straight.”
Ferrante also met Minister Louis Galea. “I recalled having told him that I would not have embarrassed him, that I would have something to show by the end of his term, and I told him “sorry” for the current situation. I just wanted his intervention, to find a solution.”
In his evidence Ferrante explained that certain direct orders had been issued out of urgency to get projects and schools completed in time during the summer term, before they would be re-opened. He said that Board member Joe Magro would say that in certain cases it was important that work was completed irrespectively of financial regulations, unless these could be observed. Sometimes, cases such as sewage leaks would have to be treated urgently. In other cases, Ferrante said he would call Director of Contracts Joe Spiteri directly to tell him ‘we have this case. Can I proceed and then you cover for me?’.
According to Ferrante, Galea said he would call him later on. But by the 13 October, Peter Fenech called Ferrante to see what steps he would be taking. Since Galea had not spoken to Ferrante, Fenech said he would speak to the Minister.
“He called me an hour later to tell me the Minister had told him I had some proposals. But I answered that I had no proposals, and that if I resign I would be taking this lying down, so I said I would face dismissal and defend my rights.”
matthew@newsworksltd.com
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