Corradino prison ended up paying more than €2.3 million extra to a contractor for the provision of body scanners and closed-circuit cameras at the state prison, the national auditor has found.

The National Audit Office found that the Correctional Services Agency paid a contractor at least €4.5 million, when the original agreement was for a €2.1 million outlay.

Despite the steep escalation in costs, the NAO found no other agreements between CCF and the contractor related to the additional equipment and services.

“The amount of €2,376,328 paid over and above the contracted amount could not be validated,” the NAO said in his report.

The project began in 2018 under then-CEO Alex Dalli, who is currently self-suspended following a spate of suicides in prison under his watch. Dalli sent an email to the ministry’s permanent secretary about equipment needed by the prison.

Quotations were requested from ten suppliers for:

• six full-body scanning machines
• four conveyor belts
• a CCTV system covered by a total of 880 cameras, monitoring, video recording and storage.

By the submission closing date of September 2018, two offers were received for the body scanners and four offers for the CCTV cameras.

The NAO said it did not come across any evidence that there was a board to evaluate the submissions, but detailed justifications were provided to his office for the selection of the winning bidder.

Terms of the deal

Dalli signed an agreement with the contractor to purchase body scanners and CCTVs, including basic preventive and reactive maintenance for the price of just over €2.1 million, in December 2018. 

The deal was for the contractor to supply, install and commission six body scanners, four baggage bag conveyer scanners and 420 CCTV cameras - the first phase of the security camera project. 

CCF paid 40 per cent as a down payment.

Buying cameras piecemeal

The NAO found that a large number of payments - totalling over €2.2 million - were covered by purchase orders, but that purchases were not effected through the standard procedure.

“Consequently, budgetary controls intended to prevent over-commitment of funds were completely bypassed,” the NAO said in its report tabled in parliament this week.

It said that from March 2019 onwards, the Correctional Services Agency started paying for cameras “on a piecemeal basis”, paying just over €262,000 for a total of 179 cameras until March this year.

“No records were available documenting the change from fixed contract to piece-meal basis and the applicable rates. This hindered the verification of invoiced amounts,” the NAO said.

It found that while the contract for cameras covered their supply, installation and commissioning, those supplied on a piecemeal basis were provided on a supply basis only. Installation was charged separately at the rate of €58 per hour for the technician and €98 per hour for the engineer. Items required for installation, such as mounting boxes, brackets, pole adapters and air freight were all charged separately.

€158-per-hour inspections

The NAO said that according to an itemised list, a total of 599 cameras were installed at Corradino Correctional Facility in Paola, the Valletta lock-up, Mount Carmel Forensic Ward and the centre at Mtaħleb by June this year.

It found that there was also lack of documentation for daily inspections by a network specialist, which started as an hourly visit in August 2019 and increased to two hours as from December 2019, charged at €158 per hour. Over €19,000 was paid in 2020 for these daily inspections.

The NAO found that Dalli exercised full control over the cost of the project, personally authorising the payments which were then passed on to the accounts team for payment.

“The chief financial officer and other members of the accounts team, although processing payments themselves, were not aware of the contract’s provisions and were only presented with invoices endorsed by the CEO to be processed for payment,” the NAO said.

CSA justifies additional spend

According to CSA, the extra expenses, which were not forecasted, related to additional equipment requirements which became apparent during the installation; additional wiring work and assistance with magisterial inquiries; unforeseen expenses related to health and safety upgrades in connection with standards issued by the Radiation Board Malta and other international obligations.

In its comments to the auditor, CSA said that only specific “trusted” suppliers were allowed to bid and that was why public procurement rules were not respected, choosing the best bid from among three bidders.

“When it comes to the security project in question, this practice cannot be done due to security considerations. The security equipment project was a big job and is now terminated with success. The agency could not foresee the real needs of this project. Now that the project is in place, CSA will be putting a maintenance agreement in place,” the CSA told the auditor.