Transclean took $1.3M a month for COVID train cleaning it did not do

Transclean was being paid $1.3 million a month by the Victorian government for extra COVID-19 cleaning of Melbourne's suburban trains, on top of contracts worth up to $40 million at V/Line and $5 million at Metro Trains. At the October 2020 IBAC hearing (Operation Esperance), intercepted phone calls caught the company's boss, George Haritos, admitting the cleaning was deficient — 'They didn't even f---ing spray the train,' Metro fleet manager Peter Bollas told him in April, as the state paid for more work that was not being done.

The inquiry heard Bollas knew from April that Transclean was failing to disinfect trains carrying essential workers, covered up its mistakes for more than three years, tipped the company off about a July surprise audit, and arranged for problematic documents to be removed. V/Line chief executive James Pinder allegedly received monthly payments of $8,000 to $10,000 over three-and-a-half to four years, plus $320,000 toward his $2.5 million home, and the two men had devised a plan to be paid $50,000 bonuses by Transclean.

The boards moved within a day of the evidence: V/Line sacked Pinder and terminated the government agency's contract with Transclean, and Metro Trains sacked Bollas. Chair Gabrielle Bell said the alleged conduct was 'not acceptable to V/Line under any circumstances'; Transclean would keep cleaning until a replacement was found after a 30-day period, and Transport Infrastructure Minister Jacinta Allan ordered independent auditors across the network.

Emergency COVID funding turned an underperforming contract into a $1.3-million-a-month stream with high political salience.

The alleged bribery bought the company its own regulator: audits were tipped off and documents removed.

The failures ran for more than three years, predating the pandemic, and CCTV existed that could disprove the spraying reports.

When the party being paid is also the party reporting the work, an independent check is not bureaucracy — it is the only thing standing between a contract and a cover-up.

Transclean kept cleaning through a 30-day transition while a new contractor was appointed; Metro had not confirmed the status of its own contract and Yarra Trams was reviewing its security contract. The minister called the revelations extremely disappointing and ordered independent audits of cleaning across Victoria's public transport network.