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At the time of writing this letter, more than two and a half weeks have elapsed since the publication of the articles ‘Lucrative government contracts shored up by newcomer’ and ‘Tender Times’ (Maltatoday, November 13 2005).
This case was also raised in Parliament by Labour’s agriculture spokesman. During the speech on the Ministry’s budget on the 16 of November 2005, Hon Noel Farrugia gave the Ministry a week’s deadline in his speech to clarify the issues relating to this tender or ‘otherwise he will seek redress within the European Union’s structures’ (curiously enough, it seems that the EU is increasingly providing comfort to Labour’s exponents!).
It has to be reiterated that the minister had nothing to do with the evaluation and adjudication of the tender.
Replying to Hon Farrugia during the same Parliamentary debate, Minister Pullicino said that he had no problem in giving Hon Farrugia access to the files pertaining to this tender as from that same day. To date Hon Farrugia has not followed up on this offer. Neither has MaltaToday investigated why Hon Farrugia missed on such an opportunity to get the record straight on such a ‘hot’ issue, which incidentally was originally raised by MaltaToday.
This attitude is, to say the least, incoherent, since one would expect such serious allegations to be followed up at the first available opportunity.
For the sake correctness, it must be also stated that even though Hon Farrugia and MaltaToday raised various doubts on this issue, the losing party to the tender in question did not even feel the need to exercise his right to appeal to the tender decision. That goes a long way in proving that the tender was adjudicated above board.
It is very unfortunate that some quarters persist in mud-slinging, without even trying to check out the facts, or even worse, follow up on the issues resulting from the allegations. This country, and your readers, deserve much better.
Ray Bezzina
Communications
Co-ordinator
Ministry for Rural Affairs and the Environment
Editorial note: Investigations regarding what opposition members of parliament say and do will be followed when this newspaper deems them to be of public interest.
Needless to say, we do not need to prove to anyone that we follow stories irrespective of their hue or angle. Attempts to link Farrugia with MaltaToday are entirely imaginary, perhaps the PRO should be aware that Farrugia is one of the many Labour MPs who has libelled this newspaper.
The fact remains that Jesmond Bonello a former journalist with The Times and a well established apologist for the establishment, was awarded a tender linked to agricultural subjects when his knowledge of agricultures is as specialised as ours. Furthermore in the same period he was awarded a contract for CHOGM and now for the euro-changeover campaign. His miniscule office manned by a minute staff complement have overnight become Malta’s marketing and public relations specialists.
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