Sliema council again investigated over payments to waste company

Local government director Martin Bugelli confirmed to The Times that investigations are being carried out on financial commitments the Sliema council elntered into for the collection of separated waste.

The council’s executive secretary was instructed to withhold a payment the Sliema council had to make to the company.

Local councils are obliged to register with either Green MT or Greenpak to collect the separated waste from bring-in sites and the service does not come at an expense for the councils. The companies then collect money from eco-tax refunds due by the government to companies that produce packaging waste and are signed up to the scheme.

All councils except Sliema joined one of the two separated waste collection schemes.

The news comes in the wake of statements made by Sliema mayor Nikki Dimech  to the Internal Audit Investigations Department, which was running an inquiry into alleged financial mismanagement inside the Sliema council, that PN secretary-general Paul Borg Olivier directed him to choose Green MT, a company owned by the GRTU, to provide waste recovery services for the council.

Vince Farrugia, the GRTU director-general, is a former candidate for the PN who ran for MEP.

According to Dimech’s statements to the IAID, Borg Olivier called him 15 minutes before the start of a council meeting, instructing him to choose Green MT for an alleged €1.2 million tender. The GRTU are disputing the value quoted by the mayor and contend the value is far less.

In a reaction later yesterday evening, Borg Olivier said the allegations were unfounded and that he would take legal action against Dimech. Borg Olivier has also sued MaltaToday on two separate news items dealing with the Sliema electoral district.

Minutes of a meeting held at the Sliema council on 20 January, 2010 shows that representatives of both Green MT and another waste recovery company Greenpak, presented councillors with details of their offers.

Dimech then followed Borg Olivier’s directive by proposing that the council choose Green MT, and was seconded by Labour councillor Martin Debono, and the four councillors present – Yves Cali, Edward Cuschieri, Julian Galea and Patrick Pace – voted in favour.

Dimech also told the IAID inquiry that a former executive secretary, Althea Borg, signed the waste recovery contract with the GRTU director-general Vince Farrugia, without Dimech's approval. This meant the contract was never officially approved by the mayor.

Borg Olivier has not denied having held conversations with Dimech on the subject, before the contract decision was taken.

MaltaToday asked Borg Olivier to comment on the conversations he held with Sliema councillors before the meeting to decide on the tender issued to Green MT, and of any conversation he had with Vince Farrugia on the same tender.

The secretary-general replied: “There is no tender that has been issued to Green MT by the Sliema local council. Hence, your questions are speculative.”

Borg Olivier is aware that the tender was never signed, because Dimech had complained to him that he had not been present during the contract's signing.

Dimech’s claims to the IAID, a unit inside the Office of the Prime Minister, may offer clues into Green MT’s considerable economic activity in Nationalist-led councils, and what degree of influence Paul Borg Olivier holds on commercial decisions inside these same councils.

Now the GRTU has entered the fray, in a denial of the statements relayed by Dimech to the IAID inquiry that were first reported by MaltaToday. “The mayor says he acted under pressure of the PN secretary-general. For the GRTU, what the mayor said is an invention. Green MT was in negotiations with the Sliema mayor to reach the best arrangement possible,” a GRTU spokesperson said.

GRTU said the agreement for waste recovery would include paying €332,000 to contractors and €4,000 to the Sliema council over two years. “The €1.2 million figure cited by the Sliema mayor is a haphazard guess,” the GRTU said, adding that the council does not pay for this service. Instead, Green MT collects the balance from what receives from waste producers, and passes part of this to the local council.