The Ministry for Health denied a report published in The Malta Independent on Sunday about the IT contract for the Stock Control System for the new CPSU (Central Procurement Supplies Unit) warehouse in San Gwann.
The Ministry said that the evaluation process of this call has not even commenced as the adjudication committee is still being set up and has not been granted.
But The Malta Independent on Sunday published documents that show that the best offer was submitted by Mall Systems Limited. Mark Sammut, government IT consultant, owns 96% of the company shares.
It is confusing how the ministry claims that the process is still to start when such documents are available on a government website.
According to the ministry, the story may seriously jeopardise the evaluation process. This call is sensitive and vital to guarantee that the Government has a suitable stock control system in place by the time millions of stock in medicines and medical products are transferred to this new warehouse.
The Ministry for Health said the story might result in stalling the award process, thus not having control mechanisms in place to manage millions of euro worth of stocks or delaying the opening of the new warehouse in San Gwann, with the Government being compelled to pay the present rent to maintain stocks in Madliena and Marsa.
Details about the companies which submitted their bids and their value of offer are available to the public domain through the Contracts Department Electronic Public Procurement System internet portal www.etenders.gov.mt, the ministry said.
It is precisely on this website from where The Malta Independent on Sunday obtained the document that was published today. This is being reproduced.
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An IT company owned by the Health Ministry’s IT consultant, which is currently developing a new IT system for Mater Dei Hospital, has submitted the cheapest bid for a government contract to provide the IT system for the government’s new central medicines store being built in San Gwann.
The cheapest offer was submitted by Mall Systems Ltd, a company owned by Mark Sammut, who is the Health Ministry’s adviser on IT. Public documents clearly show that he holds a 96 per cent stake in the company.
Dr Sammut, the person who developed the new Patient Administration System (PAS) at Mater Dei, denied having been on the team that drafted the tender document, claiming that he had not been involved.
In all, there were three bids, but Mall Systems’ bid of €105,546 was strikingly cheaper than the others.
When asked by this newspaper on Friday whether, in his position as IT consultant to the health ministry, he was privy to sensitive information related to the tender Dr Sammut replied that he was aware that a call for tenders had been issued but said that he had had nothing to do with that particular IT system.
“I am working on the Mater Dei PAS and am advising the Ministry on other IT systems, but I have nothing to do with the work at the medicines store,” he said.
At a press conference in November, Health Minister Godfrey Farrugia said that the new system was being built free of charge by Mater Dei IT department workers. This, he said, would save the government a great deal of money.
This was also confirmed to this newspaper by a Health Ministry spokesman on Friday evening. However, this newspaper has now learnt that a tender has been issued and a contract awarded and that the system will cost the government in excess of €100,000.
Sammut denies having been appointed by Dalli
Dr Sammut was also tasked with building the new and improved PAS for Mater Dei, but in comments to this newspaper he insisted that he had done this work in his capacity as a Ministry consultant and that he was paid nothing extra. In fact, he explains, his contract does not allow this.
Dr Sammut insisted that the system he helped develop has nothing to do with the now shelved €25 million MITA tender that will be rehashed and re-issued early next year.
He also denied having been appointed to the post by John Dalli, even though he had served as an advisor to Mr Dalli in Brussels and even before that, when Mr Dalli was Malta’s Health Minister. Dr Sammut claims to have advised the Health Ministry for some time, from when former Health Minister Joe Cassar had taken the helm following Mr Dalli’s departure for the European Commission.
It still remains to be ascertained who engaged Dr Sammut and when, since he was presented as a member of Mr Dalli’s team who prepared the Mater Dei report during a press conference launching the report last Saturday.
Claims of misconceptions in the media
According to Dr Sammut, the IT system and the €25 million MITA tender that was scrapped are completely unconnected. The whole episode started last Saturday, when Mr Dalli presented his report on the workings of the health sector. In the report, Mr Dalli wrote that the Ministry had been informed in April that the PAS patient database was to be discontinued by the end of the year. The reason given was that the system is old and outdated. Because the news was sudden, the Ministry had no choice but to ask the supplier to upgrade the system. According to Mr Dalli, this would have cost €2.5 million, but according to Dr Sammut, the real cost was closer to €5 million.
Dr Sammut, whose job description is to advise the Minister, and who has some 20 years of experience in the IT development sector under his belt, was tasked with redesigning the system with the help of Mater Dei IT Department employees. Dr Sammut told this newspaper that the PAS is not the only IT system at Mater Dei, but that it is the backbone, with all other systems depending on it.
“The PAS is not a big system,” he said, “but it is critical.” The previous system had failed four times and it was bought from different suppliers each time. “To upgrade it would have cost us €5 million but we did not have the budget for that. So we took the decision to build a new system in-house. Instead of remaining just an adviser, I took on the challenge to build the new system. I developed the application. In reality that was a small part of the job. The real work lies in the implementation according to the hospital’s specifications and having it conform to Mater Dei Hospital’s requirements. The system had to be designed around the hospital’s requirements and this work was carried out by the IT workers, consultants and nurses at the hospital.”
Dr Sammut said that the system is now called the Clinical PAS. New features, such as patient tracking, triggers to reduce waiting times and an emergency severity index – were also included. According to its creator, diagnosis has now become 100 times faster.
No extra payments
Dr Sammut insisted that there were no extra payments issued for the system. “I couldn’t do that, my contract does not allow me,” said Dr Sammut, who is employed on public service salary Scale 4. This was echoed by Mr Dalli himself in a press release issued on Thursday in which he stated: “The cost of upgrading the system would have been at least €2.5 million. Instead, the IT consultant within the Ministry (Mark Sammut) took it upon himself to develop a new system instead of the archaic one in use, and this without getting any extra payment.”
€25 million tender ‘something else entirely’
Dr Sammut said that it was incorrect to say that he was given the €25 million IT tender, because that tender was something else entirely. “That was a MITA tender that was shelved. It was not just about the PAS but included all IT systems,” he said.
It was MITA that had decided to stop the tender and, according to Mr Dalli’s report, the tender was withdrawn because “the system was not considered to have been properly defined”. Mr Dalli had also told this newspaper that the system can be developed for a fraction of the price (€25 million.)
Dr Sammut said that a number of tenders had been withdrawn because of the White Papers issued by the Health Ministry. Now that the White Papers have been published, the tenders can be revised and issued once again. “The Ministry will start outsourcing again. This was a one-off thing. We cannot develop the software ourselves every time,” he said.
‘I have nothing to do with John Dalli’
Dr Sammut insisted that, despite his connections, his job has nothing to do with John Dalli. “I was recruited by the Health Ministry way before Mr Dalli came into the picture. It is true that I was Mr Dalli’s adviser in Brussels, but I was also his adviser when he was the Health Minister, and I was still engaged at the Health Ministry when Joe Cassar took office.”
He also insisted that his company, Cursor Ltd, was not involved in any way. The work had been carried out solely in his capacity as a salaried Ministry consultant. “I am not even entitled to overtime,” he remarked.
Dr Sammut said that his company has been a “non-trading” company for a number of years because of a lack of work. But a quick look at Cursor Ltd’s website and Facebook page clearly shows that Cursor Ltd is not only active but is also advertising job vacancies. How Dr Sammut can claim that he is just a Ministry consultant on IT with “no overtime” while he is also the majority shareholder in Mall Systems Ltd, the winner of another IT contract from the same Ministry, still needs to be explained.