Updated | PN call for action against Bastjan Dalli's company over Mater Dei concrete

Claudette Buttigieg calls for action to be taken against Bastjan Dalli's company. Video: Chris Mangion

The Nationalist Party has called for immediate action against Mixer Ltd, a concrete supply company owned by Bastjan Dalli, brother of former EU Commissioner John Dalli.

“Mixer Ltd had provided most of the concrete for the pillars at Mater Dei in the first half of 1996,” shadow health minister Claudette Buttigieg told a press conference, citing an independent inquiry report led by retired judge Philip Sciberras. “The report also mentions specific trucks owned by Mixer Ltd. This is extremely damning, and the government must seek justice immediately.”

Bastjan Dalli had purchased Mixer Ltd - then known as Planka Ltd - from Joseph Gaffarena in 1995.

Buttigieg quoted architect Albert Cauchi, who the report had cited as having said that John Dalli was responsible for the government’s Cost-Plus agreement with Skanska and that all subcontractors were engaged through him.

She also called on the government to publish an architects’ report on Mater Dei’s structure that former Prime Minister Alfred Sant had commissioned in 1996, when he had decided to build the hospital as a general hospital.

“Works on the hospital were suspended while the architects were studying the structure,” Buttigieg said. “They must have found that the structure was fine for works to proceed on it.”

Shadow economy minister Claudio Grech argued that the inquiry should have interviewed former health minister Joe Cassar and contractors involved in the supply of concrete. He called on the government to suspend its public contracts with the contractors mentioned in the report.

He insisted that the PN were not defending anyone but the taxpayers who “paid good money for a shoddy service”.

“The time for empty words, political finger-pointing, and sending letters is over,” Grech said. “The inquiry’s findings clearly show that people were commercially, technically and legally responsible for the low-quality concrete and the government should take harsh steps against all who were responsible.” 

In reaction, former health minister John Dalli dubbed the two opposition MPs “pathetic” and said they were “spinning” a statement made by architect Albert Gauci in the “latest phobic attack on me.”

While pointing out that “whoever is responsible for the bad workmanship at the hospital should be held fully accountable, whoever he is,” Dalli said Gauci “does not get very nice character references from the people that worked with him.” 

In the inquiry report, Gauci is quoted as saying that the "then Minister Dalli came in and was in charge of the Cost Plus, he was everything.  All the subcontractors came from him."

In his statement issued today, Dalli said that although he was not acquainted with the architect, “I declare that these statements by Gauci are a lie.”

He explained that the Copst plus agreement signed with the contractors was “owned and administered by FMS.” Moreover, he said that FMS appointed Howarth-CLS/E.C.Harris as cost controllers on the project.

Dalli denied that he ever introduced any contractor, sub contractor or supplier to the project and insisted that this was the sole responsibility of the contractor, Skanska.

He also quoted architect Martin Attard Montaldo who told the inquiry that he was never subject to any political pressure to favour any specific subcontractor. 

“In fact he was requested by me to issue a declaration to this effect following the controversy regarding the involvement of my brother,” Dalli said.

In regards to his brother Bastjan, Dalli said that when the Cost Plus agreement was signed, “my brother had been completely out of the project for four years.  This puts paid to the insinuations and innuendoes being spun by the PN spokespersons.”