Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1071614
maltatoday | WEDNESDAY • 16 JANUARY 2019 3 NEWS JAMES DEBONO THE Planning Commission has once again refused an ap- plication for the construction of a fireworks factory in Tal- Għajn in Mellieħa. The site is close to Popeye Village on land designated as an area of ecological value. The proposed factory's foot- print is also adjacent to a pop- ular walking route between Majjistral Park and Popeye village, passing features such as the well-preserved ruin Razzett tax-Xitan (The Dev- il's Farmhouse), a Grade 1 protected site. The application had already been refused in June 2011 but following an appeal the Environment and Planning Review Tribunal (EPRT) or- dered the application to be reassessed according to new policies regulating fireworks factories approved in 2014. But the application was later shot down by the Environ- ment and Resources Author- ity and by a technical com- mittee which assesses the technical aspects of similar applications. The committee concluded the site area was too restrict- ed in size to incorporate a complete fireworks factory. Farmers interviewed by MaltaToday in August 2015 had objected to the applica- tion because of the proximity of the proposed fireworks fac- tory to their highly cultivated fields citing risks to their safety. The development was pro- posed by the Marija Bam- bina Pyrotechnics Associa- tion which has lamented that Mellieħa is one of the few lo- calities without such a facility and has to buy its fireworks from other towns and villages. The association rebutted farmers' objections, arguing that farmers had reclaimed land near the proposed fac- tory in the past few years. An illegal explosives factory had previously operated in a farm building a stone's throw away from the public road. But an enforcement notice against the illegal use of the site as well as against seven illegal rooms built without a permit was issued in 2008. Mellieha fireworks factory application rejected by planning board The area of the proposed fireworks factory in Mellieha, rejected by the Planning Commission and (above) an aerial view of the site MATTHEW VELLA THE hidden owners of Vitals Global Healthcare, who were controversially awarded a hospitals' privatisation contract they could not fulfil, report- edly funded the takeover of a medi- cal equipment company that now has exclusivity with new hospital owners Steward Healthcare. According to a share purchase agree- ment published by The Shift News, the owners of Vitals – Ram Tumuluri and Shaukat Ali Abdul Ghafoor – funded the takeover of medical equipment company Technoline when it was ac- quired by its former sales and market- ing manager, Ivan Vassallo, using a €5 million loan from one of VGH's owners. Technoline was granted exclusivity to supply medical equipment to the three hospitals formerly run by VGH, at a time when Tumuluri was taking decisions on how taxpayers' money was being spent by Vitals to run three Maltese state hospitals. According to the share purchase agreement for the sale of VGH to Steward Healthcare, Tumuluri and Shaukat Ali used offshore companies in Jersey to grant a €5.14 million loan so that Vassallo would buy out his boss and purchase Technoline in De- cember 2016. According to a diagram of owner- ship published by The Shift News, three companies – Evergreen Global Ventures, New Horizons Investments, and Mount Everest Investments – are the owners of Vitals Global Health- care Jersey, which in turn owns Vitals Procurement Jersey. Vitals Procurement gave Vassallo the €5.14 million loan to his personal company Gateway Solutions. The owners of the original Jersey companies include Tumuluri (New Horizons) and Shaukat Ali (Mount Everest). The loan is referred to as a convert- ible loan in the agreement signed by VGH with Steward, which means the loan can be converted into shares for the hidden owners to take over Tech- noline. Only three months after Vassallo took control of Technoline, VGH en- trusted this company with the pro- curement of all of its medical supplies in a done deal that was agreed just 19 days after the takeover. The details suggest that VGH's direc- tors and owners were in fact awarding the Technoline deal to themselves by making it an exclusive supplier to Vi- tals. VGH was granted a 30-year conces- sion that can be extended to 99 years for the management of the St Luke's, Karin Grech and the Gozo hospitals. Vitals sold off their concession for a nominal €1 to Steward Healthcare, with €55 million in debt. The public hospitals' concession was negotiated by then health minis- ter Konrad Mizzi when an unknown consortium, Vitals Global Healthcare, was selected to take over the running of the three hospitals. The concession is now under inves- tigation by the Auditor General. Vitals owners secretly purchased medical supplier with exclusivity for Malta hospitals