[WATCH] Updated | Bartolo insists he never met FTS tenderer over corruption claims

Education minister Evarist Bartolo has vehemently denied that a tenderer had warned him as early as February 2015 of allegations of impropriety in procurement proceedings at the Foundation for Tomorrow’s Schools (FTS) involving his former canvasser and driver, Edward Caruana.

“What tenderer? I don’t know that person and never met him in my life,” he said when asked by MaltaToday at the end of a Cabinet meeting. “If I were to claim that I met you at midnight and published that story in MaltaToday’s Sunday paper, would that make the information true?

“We are contesting the information that was published last Sunday. Just because a story appears in a newspaper doesn’t make it gospel.”

He added that he will take “steps” against the people behind the allegations and pledged to issue a detailed right of reply to the story.

Prime Minister Joseph Muscat reiterated his full support for Bartolo, denying that the minister’s judgement was clouded by the fact that Edward Caruana was his canvasser and driver.

“Not only was his judgement not clouded, but he took the necessary decisions in a non-biased manner. One can criticise Bartolo for many things, but certainly not for incorrect behaviour.”

He said that he couldn’t remember when Rizzo first informed him of the corruption allegations, only that he had forwarded the email in question to Bartolo – who pledged that he was taking the necessary action.

MaltaToday revealed on Sunday that a supplier who had tendered for school furniture had complained that FTS procurement officer Edward Caruana – appointed as a person of trust by Bartolo – had suggested contacting Sandro Ciliberti, a Gozo-based businessman who supplied school furniture.

According to the allegation, Ciliberti had boasted that all winners of tenders would have to turn to him because only he had a unique “certification of design” for furniture as specified in the FTS tender.

MaltaToday is informed that Bartolo had followed up this complaint, asking the FTS chief executive officer Philip Rizzo to meet the complainant.

Instead, Rizzo asked Joseph Caruana, the permanent secretary at the education ministry, to meet the complainant. When the latter met Caruana, he was surprised to see Edward Caruana also present at the meeting and it dawned on him that the two were brothers.

The complainant told Caruana that the certification of design quoted in the tenders prohibited any other company from providing the furniture that was being requested, because the particular certified furniture was provided only by the Italian supplier working exclusively with Sandro Ciliberti.

A police investigation is underway although the exact nature of corruption in the award of direct orders has not yet been established.

Bartolo dismissed concerns raised by the Nationalist Party over how he claimed to be aware of the allegations in April this year, and not in August as he first intimated.

“This idea that I reasoned one way in spring and another way in summer, as though I am playing Vivaldi’s Le Quattro Stagioni, is not true.”

He said that Edward Caruana was removed from his post as FTS procurement officer in April when Philip Rizzo raised concerns about his behaviour in a brief email. When the allegations grew in severity, Bartolo ordered an internal investigation that revealed there was prima facie evidence that Rizzo’s claims against Edward Caruana were true. In September, the allegations were passed to the police, the Internal Audit and Investigations Department and the Commission against Corruption.

‘Bartolo’s position in untenable’ – PN

Earlier, the PN insisted that Bartolo’s position as education and employment minister is no longer tenable, claiming that he backtracked on the extent of his knowledge of Rizzo’s allegations.

PN deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami told a press conference that Bartolo had originally said he was aware of the allegations in August, but later backtracked to say he was aware of them in April.

“This alone means his position is untenable,” he said. “Bartolo has been caught lying and covering up corruption, and Joseph Muscat is too weak to do anything about it.”

Fenech Adami accused Bartolo of not having done anything on the allegations, although the minister has released copies of emails in which he tells Rizzo to report the allegations to the police.

“Bartolo said that Konrad Mizzi should resign because of Pamama Papers,” shadow justice minister Jason Azzopardi said during the press conference. “If he believes in the ‘law for humans and law for animals’ he talked about back then, he has to follow the same for himself and his canvasser.”

Azzopardi also said that Bartolo had known of similar complaints since February 2015, as reported on Sunday by MaltaToday.

In a reaction, the Labour Party said it was rich of Beppe Fenech Adami to pass judgement on others when a company he was director of was being probed by three judges in connection with services rendered to individuals suspected of money laundering and drug trafficking.

Fenech Adami was one of two directors of Baltimore Fiduciary Services and one of their clients, CapitalOne Investment Group, was investigated by the police.

The Labour Party called out Fenech Adami for failing to sit for an audit, dubbing him the “establishment in person” and accusing him of “believing to be better than everyone and above the law”.

Video is unavailable at this time.