Minister’s aide to be charged with extortion over FTS contracts

The police are expected to arraign a minister’s aide and canvasser on charges of extortion in the commission of works for the Foundation for Tomorrow’s Schools.

Edward Caruana, 57, formerly a chief canvasser of education minister Evarist Bartolo, will be charged in court on Monday over allegations of fraud and corruption in public procurement.

Caruana – whose brother Joseph was the education ministry’s permanent secretary as recently as June – will be charged with having demanded payments from suppliers of the FTS, where he was procurement officer, as bribes to facilitate outstanding payments.

He will also be charged with extortion, and for trading in influence and use of falsification.

The charges come in the wake of national outrage against the Maltese police force in the wake of the assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, where protesters have demanded the resignation of the Commissioner of Police, Lawrence Cutajar.

It has taken the police 11 months to press charges against Caruana, after MaltaToday first reported in November 2016 that the former chief executive of the FTS, Philip Rizzo, had alleged corruption in the issuing of direct orders for the renovation of government schools.

Rizzo, 65, who resigned his post, had made specific reference to the role played by Edward Caruana in his capacity as the person responsible for direct orders.

An auditor by profession, he also approached Prime Minister Joseph Muscat with his allegations about Edward Caruana, after which an investigation was initiated by the OPM’s internal audit and investigations department (IAID).

Rizzo had also consulted with his lawyer over alleged threats he received after his reports on corruption to the police.

Education minister Evarist Bartolo had confirmed the reports, saying Rizzo had reported “a suspicious case of alleged manipulation of public procurement procedures and forgery of signatures”.

The minister had said he immediately ordered an independent investigation and referred the matter to the police. The Principal Permanent Secretary also appointed the director-general for educational services, George Borg, to represent the ministry on this matter, instead of the then permanent secretary Joseph Caruana, to avoid any possible perceived conflict of interest.

Edward Caruana, appointed to the FTS on a person-of-trust basis, was transferred to another government entity.

The ongoing police investigation also probed the finances secured by Caruana to build a block of apartments in Rabat, estimated in value of some €2 million. Caruana’s property was issued a permit in June 2015 and consists of six apartments, a three-bedroom penthouse and a ground floor basement. Notarial searches carried out by MaltaToday of the last three years indicate that Caruana did not take any bank loans on properties to finance his development. The searches shows that he only purchased a garage, for the value of around €36,000.

Email correspondence that Bartolo later tabled in parliament showed that FTS chief Philip Rizzo flagged dubious quotations submitted by Edward Caruana for works on Gozo primary schools back in April and June 2016. Bartolo replied: “Let’s keep it up our sleeves. I would like to meet on this.”

Bartolo told Rizzo that nobody – referring to Caruana – would enjoy immunity. “Please understand that no one, no one, no one, enjoys immunity or is untouchable because he has worked for me politically since 1992. Understood?”

Then an email dated 10 September shows Rizzo disagreeing with the steps being taken by Bartolo to transfer Caruana, which was an indication that Bartolo was still unsure on whether to sack Caruana.

“Transferring Edward with same incredibly high remuneration package is worse than doing nothing at all. All Gozo knows what he was up to… someone is going to ask from where during the last two years Edward got [circa] €400,000 to build a six apartment block in Rabat. Believe me, you’re all playing with fire with highly flammable material all around in each FTS project’s file.”

Defamation suit

This was not the first time that Edward Caruana had been flagged in relation to allegations of corruption.

In 2015, Xewkija Gozitan contractor Giovann Vella had told Anthony Muscat, then CEO of the FTS, that Edward Caruana had asked him for €30,000 so that [Caruana] could request the quality assurance officer to certify the works and release the pending payments.

According to The Times, Muscat had reported this to Bartolo on 31 August, 2015. Caruana had then asked the police to institute criminal libel proceedings against Giovann Vella. Caruana’s brother, Joseph, told the court that he had not felt the need to inform the police of any allegations of corruption since his brother had filed a defamation case in court. At the time, Bartolo also said he was “monitoring the situation”.

Joseph Caruana was only transferred away from the education ministry to the finance ministry in June 2017.

While the permanent secretary has always denied any connection with his brother’s alleged crimes, The Times had reported that Joseph Caruana had copied confidential information to his brother, soon after receiving instructions from Bartolo on overdue payments which had to be settled by the FTS.

Asked back in March 2016 to explain why he had felt the need to copy his brother Edward with confidential information behind his minister’s back, Joseph Caruana did not reply. However, he insisted that he had nothing to hide and was ready to reply to questions put to him by the ongoing police investigation.