By Megan Gorrey
A former contractor at a Sydney council has admitted he accepted kickbacks in return for helping a friend’s construction company win work on infrastructure projects, a corruption inquiry heard.
The NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption has heard Pietro Cossu was a construction team leader at Canterbury Bankstown Council when he phoned his friend, subcontractor and engineer Jeremy Clarke, about working on council projects during an infrastructure boom in 2020.
Former Canterbury Bankstown Council contractor Pietro Cossu at the NSW Independent Commission Against Corruption on Tuesday.Credit: Dean Sewell
Operation Mantis is examining allegations Cossu and the council’s former works and projects unit manager Benjamin Webb had favoured Clarke’s company, General Works and Construction, when awarding council contracts without declaring a financial interest between 2020 and 2022.
The inquiry has heard allegations Cossu, who was on a council panel that assessed contractors for projects, tweaked or suggested changes to some of the quotes Clarke sent him for projects, including works at Bankstown library, before Clarke had formally submitted the quote. Cossu on Monday denied he had told Clarke which figures to include to “undercut� a rival company’s quote.
On Tuesday, Cossu told the inquiry his company, PMLV, got payments amounting to “probably a million� dollars from General Works and Construction; however, after various payments and expenses he most likely received about $300,000. The inquiry has heard the pair also worked together on projects outside the council jobs.
Counsel assisting the commission, Georgia Huxley, said Clarke had provided evidence part of some payments to PMLV were kickbacks, or rewards, to Cossu for helping the company win council contracts.
“Could be, if he says that. Could be that,� Cossu said.
Huxley pressed: “You’re agreeing you got a kickback for some of the projects that were awarded to GWAC?�
“If that’s what GWAC says, I agree,� Cossu said.
The inquiry heard Cossu had sent invoices to GWAC, but he couldn’t recall how he knew the amount to invoice. He said he never disclosed to the council he was receiving money from Clarke’s company.
Jeremy Clarke.Credit: ICAC
Asked whether he deliberately had not disclosed the payments because it would have jeopardised his own contract with the council, Cossu said: “I didn’t think along those lines, but yes.�
Questioning Clarke in cross-examination on Friday, barrister Arthur Moses, SC, had asked: “You were giving Mr Cossu kickbacks because of information that he was providing to you about how to win contracts with the council, correct?�
Clarke replied: “There would be some of that. I wouldn’t say all of it.�
Lawyer John Sutton had suggested to Clarke that “rather than kickbacks, Mr Cossu provided you with value; that is that he did work, and you paid for it�.
“Absolutely,� Clarke replied. “That is absolutely what’s happened.�
The inquiry is also examining whether Cossu and Webb used a second company, PMLV Invest and Const Pty Ltd, to supply subcontractors to the council without declaring a financial interest.
It has previously heard Cossu and Webb had supplied about 26 subcontractors to work on council projects via two recruitment agencies, Randstad and Spinifex Recruiting, but paid them significantly less than they billed the council.
The agencies allegedly paid PMLV more than $7 million for the subcontractors, but PMLV paid the workers only about $2.6 million, netting the duo’s company a potential profit of about $4 million.
On Tuesday, Moses suggested to Cossu that he had been “part of a scheme to defraud money from the council�, to which Cossu replied: “It was never a scheme.�
Moses said Cossu had “made money from the ratepayers of Canterbury Bankstown Council�.
Cossu said: “I accept that.�
Webb is due to give evidence on Wednesday.
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