The Nationalist Party is demanding that the government gives an account of the way in which two Direct Orders were given to a private company to set up a tracking system that follows school children on their way to and from school. 

This comes following media reports which revealed that the two direct orders of €118,800 and €132,500 were given by the Ministry for Education for these devices. 

In a press statement published on Wednesday, the PN said that although the Nationalist Party stressed that this initiative must be implemented immediately; it also noted that "it is unacceptable that in order to purchase this system, two direct orders of such large amounts of public funds had to be issued.” 

The PN expects the government to publicly give an account of the process that led to the award of these direct orders and explain how, despite the fact that this system has been promised for several years, no public tender has yet been issued. 

Instead, the Ministry directly selected who to give this to in circumstances that are certainly not exceptional, as stipulated in the Public Procurement regulations, the PN said. 

“The PN demands that this information be published in the best interest of good governance and accountability, with the aim of ensuring that public funds are used in the best way within the education sector in Malta,” the statement read. 

The statement was signed by the party’s education spokesperson Justin Schembri.