NEWS | Wednesday, 03 December 2008

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MCAST contract awarded to bidders charged over false declarations

Matthew Vella
Labour MP Evarist Bartolo yesterday lambasted the government for awarding an MCAST contract to two companies being charged in court over making false declarations in their tendering bids.
The companies, Future Focus and Key Services, were charged by police after investigations they conducted over the contentious €1.8 million contract for the supply of ICT courses to 600 students at the Malta College of Arts, Sciences and Technology.
They are accused of making false declarations over access for the disabled to their tuition centres.
Along with three other tuition companies, STC Training, St Martin’s, and Computer Domain, they were awarded part of the million-euro contract to teach MCAST's information and communications technology course in their centres.
Yesterday, the company Future Focus was still declaring that notwithstanding any action by the police, it was fully compliant on accessibility for disabled students and that it was at present catering for students and teachers with restricted mobility.
In a reaction issued yesterday evening, the Ministry for Finance reproached the Labour MP for “turning education into political football”.
Without going into the merits of the decision to award the two companies a part of the MCAST contract, the ministry said Bartolo was throwing doubts on the judicial system of the country by alleging that the companies were already guilty before even being tried before a court.
“If a contractor is found guilty, we will take all necessary steps at law as stipulated in the contract,” the ministry said.
The ministry added that the police investigation only served to delay the start of the ICT course for 600 students by one month.
In a later reaction, Bartolo said finance minister Tonio Fenech should have ensured serious and correct procedures, rather than carrying out “a dishonest attack” on him.

The MCAST tender has attracted controversy because the adjudicating panel of judges for the tender changed its marks when it transpired that only one company, Computer Domain, had received the necessary 70 marks to be awarded the contract.
An appeal lodged by Computer Domain to the Public Contracts Appeals Board revealed that after the panel’s marks were sent to the Contracts Department, the directorate told the panel that their final conclusions “did not reflect the content of the tender specifications”, which led the panel to re-grade the bids, and recommend that all five bids are accepted.
The chairman of the panel, Juan Borg Manduca – also the director of MCAST’s ICT institute – claimed he was “under the impression that the threshold was fixed at 50 points.”
The lawyer representing Computer Domain, Edward Gatt, said this was very hard to believe and claimed the points of all bidders were increased over the pass mark because they wanted the other bidders to become eligible for the contract.
The director-general of contracts, Francis Attard, has categorically denied that he or the general contracts committee ever requested the panel to change the points.
In its decision, the Public Contracts Appeals board said the panel had failed to analyse the tender document provisions: “This board cannot but exclaim its amazement in this regard, questioning in the process, as to how could have the adjudication board worked on the assumption that the pass mark was at 50%... the PCAB cannot condone such unprofessional conduct…”
It said that “a certain mental conditioning could have impinged on the final scores highlighted in the second report where it was noted that the pass mark was 70%.”
In the end, the PCAB rejected Computer Domain’s appeal, saying the scores attained should be considered along with the maximum intake capacity of each tuition centre.
Computer Domain presented a judicial protest against Borg Manduca.

Police investigation
A police investigation was also launched at the behest of Evarist Bartolo’s protestations.
“Every bidder was bound by a set of conditions, among them the accessibility of their centres to people with disability. Future Focus and Key Services’ premises are not accessible to people with disability and MCAST knows this, because their official had been told to report on this specification and yet this report has been ignored,” Bartolo said yesterday.
The Labour MP said police investigations had revealed the two centres in question were not accessible to the disabled, so their declarations in their tendering bid had been false.
“The committee for contracts also knows these two companies made false declarations and are being charged on this account. Last week, this committee decided to split the contract between Swatar Training Centre (STC), Computer Domain and St Martin’s. Now, government has decided to award the contract to these two companies as well,” Bartolo said.
“This is shameful and scandalous behaviour from a government that is encouraging disrespect of the law and abuse of rules which government should be safeguarding.”
In a letter to the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Education, the police pointed out that their investigation had found “a certain degree of carelessness” by the panel of judges, but which did not amount to any criminal offence. The letter does not specify what this carelessness amounted to.
MaltaToday has already revealed how three of the five judges revised their grades upwards by as much as 27% to ensure that all five companies got a share of the €1.8 million contract to give ICT lessons to MCAST students.
The selection board was chaired by Juan Borg Manduca, the director of MCAST’s institute of ICT, and also a director of Malta IT and Training Services Ltd (MITTS), the government’s IT services company. The other adjudicators were Peter Camilleri, a project manager at MCAST; Fabianne Ruggier, who formed part of the Information Society Secretariat at the Ministry for Investments Transport and Communications; and two other project managers, Rossano Cuschieri and Ray Mangion.
Borg Manduca revised his marks upwards by an average of 20.1% over his initial assessment, while Camilleri and Ruggier increased their marks by 17.6% and 27.8% respectively. Cuschieri and Mangion’s upward revisions were of 0.3% and 1.5% respectively – relatively minimal.

mvella@mediatoday.com.mt

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