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Peter Agius lodges formal complaint over St Vincent de Paul direct order
MEP candidate Peter Agius calls on European Commission to investigate ‘ongoing systematic breaches’ of public procurement rules by authorities
20 May 2021, 1:30pm
by Karl Azzopardi
The Nationalist MEP candidate Peter Agius has lodged a formal complaint with European Internal Market Commissioner Thierry Breton over the St Vincent de Paul direct order.
The contract was awarded by negotiated procedure in November 2017. The same companies had already won a separate bid to build a new kitchen at SVPR and construct an extension.
What was intended to be a catering contract was turned into a mega-contract for the award of a new hospital wing built by the DB Group and James Caterers, by way of a negotiated procedure.
It may be costing taxpayers €50,000 a day and more than twice as much as it should be, but the Maltese police have decided not to investigate the illegal direct order awarded by the State-owned St Vincent De Paul elderly home to James Caterers and a subsidiary of DB Group.
The police told Lovin Malta that they requested a meeting with the National Audit Office following its lengthy report publication last week. The meeting was held and “it resulted that at this stage a police investigation is not necessary”.
Lovin Malta also asked the NAO’s office whether it was satisfied with the government’s reply to its report, which was simply to pledge never to repeat such mistakes.
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Photo: Miguela Xuereb
The damning NAO Report on the St Vincent de Paul (SVDP) €274 million direct order confirms the “critical need for a holistic reform in public procurement,” the Malta Chamber said.
Calling for a level playing field for all business, the Malta Chamber underlined the importance of full transparency in public procurement.
The chamber also urged government to observe good governance principles as well as providing an equal playing field “at all times.”
“As public procurement accounts for a substantial portion of the taxpayers’ money, governments are expected to carry it out efficiently and with high standards of conduct to ensure high quality of service delivery and safeguard the public interest.”
Minister Justyne Caruana has defended her role in a controversial mega-contract for a home for the elderly that the National Audit Office said breached procurement law.
Earlier this month the NAO noted that parliamentary secretaries involved in the deal had left the auditor’s office “incredulous” at how a mega-deal was not properly scrutinised.
Caruana, who is now Education Minister, was one of two parliamentary secretaries politically responsible for the mega-deal. The other was Anthony Agius Decelis, now a Labour backbencher.
The report said the government had acted in breach of legislative provisions and broke public procurement regulations in the St Vincent de Paul deal, which handed a €274 million concession to a consortium owned by James Caterers and a firm forming part of dB group, spanned the terms of two ministers and two parliamentary secretaries.