Skanska sub-contractors won’t speak up

Maltese contractors who formed part of the Skanska consortium have refused to speak up over the weak concrete used to construct a number of pillars on floors 8 and 9 of Mater Dei’s Accident and Emergency Department.

The construction of the €600 million hospital was awarded to Swedish firm Skanska, which together with Maltese contractors Blokrete Ltd and Devlands Ltd formed the consortium.

On 22 May, 1995, the Nationalist Cabinet of Ministers decided to issue a letter of intent to start negotiations with Skanska, Blokrete and Devlands consortium for the building of the hospital, then known as the San Raffaele Hospital.

MaltaToday has been unable to speak to Blokrete Ltd director Joseph Fenech while Martin Deguara, one of four directors at Devlands Ltd, refused to be dragged into the matter.

“There are far more competent people than myself to speak on the matter,” Deguara said and went on to refer to Skanska.

MaltaToday can confirm that the problematic concrete pillars, built in early 1996, are mostly situated on the eighth floor. Giving rise to suspicion of something underhand is the fact that not all pillars were built using concrete of inferior quality.

In fact, it appears that results of stress tests carried out on various samples showed that these were not homogeneous: some came back with a C30 result while others came back with levels as low as C10.

C30 relates to the compressive strength of a cube of concrete when tested, and the higher the number the greater the strength of the concrete.

The choice of concrete grade is usually made at the design stage for the structure and affects the overall strength and resistance of the structure to decay.

Issues with the concrete used were frequently flagged by the then Labour and opposition leader Alfred Sant.

Newspaper reports dating back to 3 April, 1996 quote Sant pointing his fingers towards Mixer Ltd. Calling for an independent inquiry into the contract awarded to Skanska, Sant had insisted that contracts for concrete works were being awarded to Mixer Ltd, a batching plant belonging to Bastjan Dalli, brother to then Nationalist finance minister John Dalli.

But Bastjan Dalli, when contacted yesterday, insisted he never provided concrete used on the flagged concrete pillars at the Accident and Emergency Department at Mater Dei Hospital.

At the same time, he added that concrete provided by Mixer Ltd “was minimal”.

“I had nothing to do with it and I never had any contracts to provide concrete, not even contracts with Skanska,” Bastjan Dalli said.

Sant had argued that Skanska had sub-contracted project concrete works to Mixer Ltd, which was however not using its own trucks to transfer the concrete but vehicles belonging to Blokrete Ltd and Devland Ltd.

Bastjan Dalli rubbished this statement, stating that “there was a lot of empty talk in papers such as yours”.

Parallel to the police investigation which has been launched, the government has now appointed a board of inquiry, led by judge Philip Sciberras, to establish the facts and timeline of events.

The board, which has to go through some 150 boxes of files covering the planning, design and construction of Mater Dei Hosptial, has the power to appoint technical experts.

The government wants political, technical and commercial responsibility to be established.

The board will be analysing criminal and civil liabilities resulting from the new development, as well as cooperating and passing on any relevant information to the Police.

Investigating structural stability

While no signs of stress such as cracks are visible on the structure, the government has ordered a full site investigation of the A&E department, together with a site survey of the whole hospital.

Discussions are underway with a London-based company specialising in the sector and representatives of the Foundation for Medical Services will be in London next week to agree on the terms of reference.

The foreign company should physically test, through destructive and non-destructive means, a sufficient number of structural elements forming part of the structure and assess through European Standards the concrete design strength of the structure at the A&E.

Tests should also determine the loads on all structural elements by taking into consideration all loads, including vertical and seismic loads. Among others, the investigation should also determine those structural members requiring reinforcing and those which need to be replaced.

Temporary mitigation measures such as vertical supports have been put in place.

The Skanska contract

On 12 September, 1995, the consortium led by Swedish contractor Skanska was awarded the contract to build the hospital. According to media reports at the time, Skanska’s bid was the second cheapest at Lm31,867,073 (€74,230,312).

In November 1993, 37 prospective tenderers – out of 101 who collected the expression of interest – applied to be considered for pre-qualification. 10 were qualified as prospective tenderers, having satisfied the requirements of the purposely set up board.

But preliminary investigations carried out over the past days suggest that Skanska’s bid may have not been the board’s initial preferred option and that other favourable bids may have been submitted.

Information received by MaltaToday suggests that Skanska may have scored the least points out of the 10 bidders during the pre-tendering stage.