News | Sunday, 12 July 2009

PRINT THIS ARTICLE

Direct order generates €2 million every year for ‘back-office’ firm

A direct order issued to Eureka Services Ltd has earned the company over €2 million every year since 2001, for a service government outsourced without a call for public tenders.
The new financial details emerged in parliament upon request of Labour MP Joe Mizzi.
Eureka conducts searches of public deeds and wills for notaries after the government subcontracted the public registry’s services to the firm, which is headed by a lawyer and a notary.
The firm has the only computer database containing the public registry’s database, and earns in excess of 90% of the fees paid to the public registry for the searches. It earned €2.3 million in 2008 and €2.6 million in 2007, of which a mere €100,000 was left in the public coffers from total payments received from searches.
Between 2001 and 2005, it was paid over €9 million by government. The firm earned the contract for the registry’s back-office work after being chosen in 1999 by the justice ministry, then headed by Tonio Borg, without a call for tender ever being issued.
The system has attracted criticism in the past. In 2006, notary Michel Dingli resigned as secretary of the Notarial Council after attacking the service to notaries as “costly and unconstitutional”. Dingli had claimed researches take longer to arrive to and from Gozo, and costs double for a fast-track service within three working days.
There is however an upside. Before the new service, each notary had his own contact person inside the public registry to carry out manual searches – even tipping them for their help. The searches were handwritten and quite cumbersome, although cheaper. So under the new system, all searches are “officialised”.
That means government can be held responsible for erroneous searches.

Any comments?
If you wish your comments to be published in our Letters pages please click button below.
Please write a contact number and a postal address where you may be contacted.

All the interviews from Reporter on MaltaToday's YouTube channel.

EDITORIAL

INTERVIEW