Bartolo canvasser accused of Rabat apartment block corruption walks free

Former minister Evarist Bartolo’s chief canvasser, Edward Caruana, who was at the centre of controversy in 2017 over a suspect apartment block he was building in Rabat, walked out of court a free man last week.

Caruana was freed of charges after the Court of Appeal presided over by Judge Edwina Grima found there was not enough proof that Caruana had taken monetary bribes and other ‘gifts’ from contractors involved in the building of government schools when he was a manager at the Foundation for Tomorrow Schools (FTS).

After more than a year of police investigations, Caruana was accused of bribery, corruption, and falsifying invoices related to various FTS school-building tenders.

The appeals court has now confirmed the Court of Magistrates’ original decision and has cleared former education minister Evarist Bartolo’s chief canvasser of all charges.

According to Judge Grima’s ruling, while Magistrate Donatella Frendo Dimech was wrong to have concluded there was no proof that Caruana was a public official when working at FTS, the prosecution still failed to present sufficient evidence to conclude beyond any reasonable doubt that Caruana had engaged in corruption.

The Court found that although it was confirmed that Caruana would deliver payments by hand (over €8 million in cheques), he asked contractors to split payments and invoices on bills that turned out to be significantly higher than what was quoted in the original tender bids and that public procurement rules had been breached, the evidence brought to court was insufficient.

Caruana was made a manager at FTS by Minster Evarist Bartolo a few weeks after he was named education minister in 2013. He was tasked with overseeing multi-million-euro government school projects.

Caruana’s brother, Joseph Caruana, was the ministry’s permanent secretary Joseph Caruana at the time. He has since been appointed tax commissioner by Prime Minister Robert Abela.

Edward Caruana had somehow managed to build a large block of flats in Rabat for around €400,000 without needing a bank loan. The work was underway at the same time that the bribery claims were being levelled against him.

Caruana had been reported to the police by then FTS CEO, and one of Bartolo’s persons of trust, Philip Rizzo, in 2016 after Bartolo failed to act on Rizzo’s reports concerning Caruana’s activities.

Rizzo claimed Caruana was asking for a 3% cut from FTS contracts and that, in one instance, he asked a contractor for a container of tiles.

Gozitan contractor Giovanni Vella told the court that Caruana had been chasing him for a €30,000 backhander for work at a public school in Gozo, which he refused to hand over.

This accusation, however, had not surfaced during court proceedings and, as such, had not been considered in the court’s deliberations.

According to Judge Grima, some of those the prosecution summoned to testify against Caruana had either changed their version of events or had been inconsistent in their testimony.

The court ruled that since no tangible proof of the accusations had been presented, it had no option but to free Caruana of all charges.