Indicted bidders are government-appointed directors
Matthew Vella
The Ministry of Education misled MaltaToday in a bid not to reveal the two companies now facing criminal charges over allegedly false declarations in their tender for an MCAST tuition contract.
While Dolores Cristina’s spokesperson told this newspaper that the police did not tell the ministry who these bidders were on Tuesday 25 November, it emerges that Deputy Commissioner Joseph Cachia had indeed informed the ministry’s permanent secretary of these companies way back on 20 November:
“...It did result that two bidders had made false declarations in the tender documents in breach of article 188 of the Criminal Code. Hence charges have been filed in court against Marcel Cutajar and Stephen Casaletto of CC Training [also Key Services] and Rosanne Galea and John David Galea of Future Focus for having on the 11 September 2008 or preceding days, submitted false declarations to a public authority,” the deputy commissioner wrote to permanent secretary Francis Borg.
The owners of both companies are government-appointed directors on the boards of authorities. Rosanne Galea is a director of the Occupational Health and Safety Authority, appointed by former education minister Louis Galea. The OHSA today falls under social policy minister John Dalli’s portfolio. Marcel Cutajar is a director of the Malta Communications Authority, which falls under infrastructure, transport and communications minister Austin Gatt.
There was no comment from the education ministry over spokesperson Mario Schiavone’s denial with this newspaper that the police did not inform them of the companies.
On 25 November, Schiavone had this to say to MaltaToday:
“Last Friday, the Police informed us that the investigation found two bidders allegedly submitted incorrect declarations with regards to accessibility to persons with disability and charges will be pressed against them in Court. The police have not officially informed us who the two bidders are.”
The police investigation into the award of MCAST’s €1.8 million contract concerns the controversial re-grading of the bids by the MCAST selection board, which revised the grades it awarded to five tuition centres who tendered for the provision of Information and Communications Technology classes to 600 students.
The decision by the Contracts Department, which issued the recommendation by the selection board, was appealed by Computer Domain Ltd, which has subsequently filed a judicial protest against the chairman of the selection board, Juan Borg Manduca.
Borg Manduca is also the director MCAST’s institute of ICT, as well as a government-appointed director on the board of the Malta IT Training Services (MITTS).
The MCAST tender has attracted controversy because the selection board for the tender changed its marks when it transpired that only one company, Computer Domain, received the necessary 70 marks to be awarded the contract.
When the board’s marks were sent to the Contracts Department, the directorate told the board that their conclusions “did not reflect the content of the tender specifications”, which led the board to re-grade the bids, and recommend that all five bids are accepted.
Juan Borg Manduca told the Public Contracts Appeals Board that he was “under the impression that the threshold was fixed at 50 points”, while Computer Domain attacked his claim, saying the points were re-graded to ensure all the bidders became eligible for the contract.
In its decision, the Public Contracts Appeals board expressed “amazement” as to how have the adjudication board had assumed the pass mark was at 50%. “The PCAB cannot condone such unprofessional conduct…”
The selection board’s judges, apart from Borg Manduca, 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.
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