The award of an ICT tender by the Malta College for Arts, Science and Technology (MCAST) has been set for an urgent hearing by the Contracts Appeals Board, after repeated appeals by education shadow minister Evarist Bartolo.
On its part, government yesterday said 600 students who had applied for courses in ICT at MCAST could not be admitted into the course because of an “investigation” called by Bartolo.
“The admission process has now been stopped after the Labour MP asked the Police to investigate the award of the contract,” the Ministry of Finance said in a statement.
Bartolo has called for an inquiry into the alleged modification of tendering requirements in the selection of private teaching centres for MCAST courses.
The selection of additional teaching centres, required to accommodate the large number of applicants for the ICT course at MCAST, had to be postponed because of legal issues.
The college had to select additional teaching centres, as applicants for the course had exceeded the capacity at MCAST.
A centre that tendered for the contract filed an appeal and a court case against the Contract Department’s selection of all five tenderers, allegedly because it was the only centre that satisfied the tender’s criteria.
Bartolo yesterday said the admission of students had to stop because the Contracts Appeals Board was hearing the company’s appeal. He said he had called for this hearing to start with urgency, because of the hundreds of students waiting for their course to start.
“The Prime Minister has unjustly blamed me for the fact that the course hasn’t yet started, because I called for an investigation into the abuse that happened when the selection criteria were modified in favour of companies that should have been disqualified, because they made false declarations over whether they were well equipped to provide MCAST students with training and education,” Bartolo said.
The government yesterday said the Appeals Board will be meeting after the Contracts Department gets the permission from the police to commence its procedures and hear the injured party’s appeal.
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