Abdul Aziz El-Debel and Raminder Singh Kahlon are charged with conspiring to dishonestly obtain a gain from the Commonwealth, to which they have pleaded not guilty, between March 2019 and June 2020.

The pair is accused of working with another man, Gopalakrishnan Suryanarayanan Vilayur, to corrupt the Department of Finance's IT procurement processes to favour candidates at New Horizons Business Solutions and Algoram.

The two businesses are respectively owned by Kahlon and Vilayur.

Following the awarding of contracts, which the court heard was "only a very small proportion" of the $25 million worth of contracts on offer at the time, the trio allegedly shared in the profit margins the businesses received.

El-Debel, who also goes by the first name Alex, and Kahlon fronted the ACT Supreme Court on Tuesday for week three of their joint trial.

The court heard that contracted worker Rishi Abrol's statement to police included Vilayur, who is not on trial, referring to a number of applicants as "my guys".

However, Mr Abrol, who gave evidence in court, said he often heard Vilayur using that phrase in reference to numerous project resources even if they were not his project resources.

"I don't see anything wrong in what he would have done ... because he wanted to get the right people," Mr Abrol said.

That witness had earlier given evidence that the area he worked in was often busy and was like "an engine room" and had "very tight deadlines".

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During cross examination, defence lawyer Catherine Newman suggested to Mr Abrol that El-Debel directed him to shortlist candidates who had skills related to SAP S/4HANA, an enterprise resource planning software, for one of the procurements.

Ms Newman said El-Debel suggested the worker expedite the process by using the computer function control + F to find that term in their CVs because the work was "a very big task" and they had a tight timeframe.

The court heard Mr Abrol's statement to police included: "I'd like to say 'please, go into the Excel spreadsheet that I've prepared and look at what's been written for each CV'. I'm not being biased in relation to any organisation."

The court heard he also spoke with El-Debel about a conflict of interest issue relating to the intellectual property of the Finance Department.

Ivan Spudic, an executive-level employee at the department, sat on an assessment panel related to candidates and said El-Debel convened a meeting about expectations in procuring contractors.

Mr Spudic said El-Debel often checked in about how the process is going, saying things like "has that one finished, when are you going to do the next role?"

Asked by prosecutor David Staehli SC if his role in discussing with others about applicants' suitability was "just making up the numbers", Mr Spudic said yes.

The witnesses' evidence comes after about 24 hours of phone recordings were played, taking up the first two weeks of the trial.

Defence barrister Matthew Kalyk, representing Kahlon, argues that the evidence could not prove the trio conspired.

Mr Staehli said the Commonwealth's case was a circumstantial one and that the proceeds alleged to have been obtained could not be calculated.

Mr Staehli said the $25 million figure related to only the value of the Finance Department's contracts at the time. The trial before Justice Michael Elkaim continues.

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