|
James Debono
The Nationalist-led Xaghra council in Gozo has awarded the tender for road patching and water culverts to an employee, Mark Sultana, of Mayor Joe Spiteri’s company.
Sultana also makes use of machinery belonging to the mayor’s company to conduct these works.
The mayor has told MaltaToday that Sultana is only doing this work on a part-time basis and that he has his own VAT book. Sultana was awarded the job through a tender process in which two bidders applied.
“The fact that he is my employee ensures that I have a greater control over expenses,” Spiteri told MaltaToday. Spiteri insisted he is making no profits from any of the work conducted by Sultana, despite making use of Spiteri’s own machinery.: “in fact the council is now spending less money on patching than before.”
Works on Triq is-Sellum have however not been certified by an architect, as is standard practice in most local councils. Instead, a man Spiteri claims “has a degree”, Saviour Bonello, is certifying the works: “we are saving thousands of liri annually from fees usually paid to architects.”
According to the Local Councils Tendering Procedures issued in 1996, whenever a contract manager is appointed to certify road works, the person chosen should be a 'Holder of A&CE (Architecture and Civil Engineering) Warrant preferably with Project Management Experience'.
Spiteri criticised former PN mayor Anthony Attard on financial mismanagement, revealing a split in the Nationalist-led council. Spiteri said he has no intention of contesting the next council election: “I only contested these elections to stop abuses which used to happen when Attard was mayor. The party had put a lot of pressure on me to contest as it was afraid of losing the election due to Attard’s performance.”
Spiteri said he managed to perform works on Triq is-Sellum by spending less than Lm5,000 by awarding the tender to three different contractors, instead of the Lm17,056 planned by the previous council according to a tender issued in 2002.
The mayor said that together with his brother, he had voluntarily carried out excavation and dumping works on this site.
Spiteri also said the previous council spent Lm10,262 on a retaining wall in the same road: “it turned out that half of this wall was built in vain due to bad planning”. Spiteri said an additional Lm20,589 was spent on a water culvert in Triq Mannar, when the original tender was given for Lm6,676.
jdebono@mediatoday.com.mt
|
