Metro promo: Ian Borg split €420,000 bill from TEC into 20 direct orders to avoid issuing tender

Tista’ taqra dan l-artiklu bil-Malti hawn.

An investigation by The Shift has uncovered a serious breach of procurement rules and blatant abuse of taxpayer’s funds by Transport Malta when Ian Borg was transport minister.

This portal revealed in May that Transport Malta had issued 20 separate direct orders in November to The Events Company (TEC) – the company used by Labour for its mass events – to organise the launch of its embryonic Metro proposal.

The Shift has now established that the total costs of the 20 direct orders, amounting to over €420,000, were calculated according to one single quote submitted by TEC in August 2021 (shown below).

The Shift has also discovered that while the 15-day event, including a launch by Prime Minister Robert Abela and then Transport Minister Ian Borg, was held during the first two weeks of October 2021, actual approval of the procurement requirements by the Finance Ministry was only obtained a month later (8 November), after the event had already taken place.

In a blatant breach of procurement rules, Transport Malta broke down the bill sent by TEC into 20 different direct orders, raising suspicions that it was done deliberately to avoid having to explain why it did not issue a tender prior to the event, according to standard, obligatory procurement rules.

The Shift has also reported that during Ian Borg’s personal electoral campaign in March, he made extensive use of the same company to organise his events, which happened to cost him much less than the hundreds of thousands of euros charged to Transport Malta just a few weeks earlier for the same type of services.

According to the three-page quote sent to Transport Malta for the event and obtained through a Freedom of Information request by The Shift, TEC charged the transport regulator much higher fees for its services than is normally charged by competitors.

For example, apart from a staggering €40,000 for a marquee tent, TEC’s Charles Magro charged Transport Malta tens of thousands of euros in additional costs for the tent’s decorations, including €50,000 to hire LED screens, €15,000 for wood flooring, €24,000 for draping, €22,000 for air conditioning (though the event was held in October) and €33,000 to light the tent’s perimeter.

For the launch of the activity itself, which lasted less than an hour and was attended by the prime minister, TEC Ltd charged taxpayers almost €70,000 including a €3,000 bill for the services of a videographer, €800 for a floor manager, and almost €800 for a ‘luxury toilet’ for Minister Ian Borg’s guests.

Through various parliamentary questions by PN MP Toni Bezzina, who has been pressing for replies about this activity, it was also discovered that apart from TEC Ltd, other commercial entities close to Labour also benefitted.

Other bills paid by Transport Malta for the same event included €4,750 to iCreate Ltd (another company owned by Magro) for printing, €300 to PBS board director, TV presenter and Water Services spokesman Pablo Micallef for compering the launch event, €2,320 to Busy Bee for refreshments, €15,390 to PR agency Pure Concepts and €18,557 to iLab for picture frames.

Independent election candidate Arnold Cassola has asked the Standards Commissioner to investigate Ian Borg’s expenditure.

In a separate request, the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation has asked the National Audit Office to investigate the €420,000 in direct orders.