Evarist Bartolo lashes out at ‘outright lies’ on FTS payments

The education ministry has hit out at a report that appeared in the Sunday Times of Malta yesterday, insisting it is “filled with inaccuracies, lack of context and outright lies,” adding that its sole aim is that of “tarnishing reputations and intentionally misleading readers.”   

The report claims that in 2015, education minister Evarist Bartolo had signed off over €400,000 in payments to a private company – Avantgarde Projects – for unapproved works carried out at St Ignatius College, despite resistance from the board of the Foundation for Tomorrow Schools (FTS). According to the report, over the course of the works, the contractor started claiming higher fees than those which had been previously agreed on.

It goes on to say that “despite repeated warnings in writing from the FTS management not to carry out any unapproved work, the contractor kept at it and eventually presented his unapproved bills to the FTS – which refused to pay up for the additional works.”

Education minister Evarist Bartolo, speaking to reporters this morning, said that it was not fair for the company not to be paid, after the previous FTS board had told the company to do the work.

“In this case I am a part of the solution and not the problem. The report by the National Audit Office is enough to show the disorganised way in which things were given out at the FTS and now, when I am trying to clear up the mess, there are people trying to make it my problem,” said Bartolo.

In a statement released on Sunday, the ministry insisted that the article is partisan in nature because “the real problems” actually took place well before March 2013.

“This case goes back a number of years and had already received press attention in 2013, when reports in the media indicated that Mr Vella of Avantgarde Project Limited reported to the police a number of allegations of irregularities by the person running the Foundation for Tomorrow’s Schools (FTS) back in 2012, in relation to the same tender mentioned in The Sunday Times of Malta, on works which took place at a Handaq school,” read the statement.

The ministry said that the article's headline, that the works were not approved, is incorrect since the additional work had in fact been requested by the FTS with the understanding that it would pay for the works.

“This present ministry, like other cases dating before 2013, had to pick up the pieces as well as the bills of the previous administration. It is worth noting that the FTS works being mentioned were commissioned in 2012 without any care for public procurement regulations. Had proper public procurement regulations and proper project management been followed by FTS in 2012, there would be no case whatsoever and payments would have taken place on time in a normal manner and work would have been completed on time.”

The statement went on to say that the rate with which the company was paid by the Ministry for the additional work was the same rate which it won the tender with and was well below the amount requested by the contractor – which was well over €500,000.

“The approach taken by the FTS from March 2013 was to look into the pending bills and the rates being put forward and pay where it is due and where works were shown to have taken place,” the ministry said.  

In a statement the PN said that the fact that Bartolo used the word solution in relation to a payment of €400,000 is indicative of a corrupt mindset, adding that the only alternative left to the minister is that of “attacking journalists who are doing their work in exposing corruption.”