The government spent more than €6.8 million on equipment and services related to COVID-19 between July and December last year, with costs for swabbing and testing kits ballooning as infections increased.
The contract with the heftiest price tag – more than €2.2 million – saw the government purchasing an undisclosed number of rapid test kits at the end of the November. This contract was awarded to E.J. Busuttil Ltd.
The government also forked out nearly €1.2 million for the leasing of beds for patients to be kept in isolation at St Thomas Hospital.
Details of the contracts awarded by the government – both through direct order and the so-called negotiated procedure – were published in the Government Gazette this week. A negotiated procedure allows the government to consult the economic operators of its choice and negotiate the terms of a contract with one or more of them.
The managing director of James Caterers’ Ltd was in breach of parliamentary privilege when he wrote to Auditor General Charles Deguara warning him of possible legal action if negative comments were made about the company.
Speaker Anglu Farrugia ruled that the catering giant had breached parliamentary privilege when it threatened to hold the NAO liable for any material damages as a result of an ongoing investigation.
Last week, Auditor General Charles Deguara accused the catering company of trying to intimidate the National Audit Office and influence an investigation into a St Vincent de Paul facility contract.
In a letter to the NAO, James Barbara, founder of the catering company, warned he would hold national audit officers personally responsible for any reputational damage that could stem from an audit into two tenders linked to the state home.
A letter by the managing director of James Caterers, which threatened the National Audit Office (NAO) with legal action, was in breach of parliamentary privilege, Speaker Anglu Farrugia has ruled.
Last week, it emerged that the company’s managing director James Barbara had written to the NAO threatening to take legal action against it and its officers, should an ongoing investigation portray the company in a bad light.
In a ruling delivered in Parliament this evening, upon the request of Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Farrugia ruled that the company had in fact breached parliamentary privilege.
The NAO is in the process of auditing tenders awarded to the company in relation to St Vincent de Paul home for the elderly. While the original 2015 tender was for the provision of meals and a kitchen, it eventually developed into a project to extend the home. The multi-million euro deal was won by a consortium, which includes James Caterers Ltd.
The auditor general has accused catering company James Caterers of trying to intimidate and influence an investigation into a controversial contract at a state home for the elderly.
In a letter to the National Audit Office, James Catering Ltd warned it would hold NAO officers personally responsible for any reputational damage from an audit into two tenders linked to the Saint Vincent de Paul facility.
The NAO is assessing a 2015 tender that began as a request for meals and a kitchen at the Luqa home and morphed into a second project to extend the facility.
It was won by a consortium that includes James Caterers and another firm that forms part of the DB group.
The owner of a house hit by an out-of-control Lamborghini says the horror crash has brought back memories of how his own mother was killed when a truck ploughed into the same property in the 1970s.
Jimmy Apap should have been sleeping above the room that the car smashed into shortly at 12.30am on Wednesday but had decided to sleep elsewhere that night.
And he revealed there had been “countless” crashes into his Żejtun home, a former windmill on a roundabout, but his appeals for better safety measures have all been ignored.
Video: Giulia Magri
The driver of the car, catering industry tycoon James Barbara, best known as the man behind James Caterers Ltd, and his wife, Michelle, were badly injured in the incident on Triq Bormla.