Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1153841
7 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 11 AUGUST 2019 NEWS A great opportunity: To join the Office of the Permanent Secretary (Strategy & Implementation) within the Office of the Prime Minister and build a career in Project Management in a dynamic highly professional working environment. Selected candidates will gain an attractive salary package and career development commensurate with their qualifications. The Office of the Prime Minister is receiving applications for the post of; Senior Manager (Projects) Candidates that have not yet obtained the specified requisites will still be considered subject that evidence is submitted that they would qualify by the 19 th August 2019 at noon (CET). Application can be submitted through Online Government Recruitment Portal on http://recruitment.gov.mt by not later than noon (CET) of Monday 19 th August 2019. Further information can be obtained by visiting the following website www.opm.gov.mt or by sending an email to human-resources.opm@gov.mt MATTHEW VELLA A UK national whose offshore finance group includes com- panies in Malta, has been ar- rested in the Netherlands in connection with allegations of misuse of several million dol- lars of investors' money. Ramesh Dusoruth was issued with an Interpol Red Notice after fleeing Bermuda after being criminally charged with swindling his investors. Dusoruth is the beneficial owner of the Bermuda-dom- iciled life insurance company St George's Ltd, a company that forms part of a group he controls through the Maltese company Les Petit Fourmies Ltd. His group of companies include PSSI Limited, Mille Roses Limited, CLPI Limited, and Lioncross Limited – all of Malta – apart from various other companies in the Neth- erlands, the Cayman Islands, Cyprus, Jersey, the Channel Islands, and Bermuda. Les Petits Fourmies in Malta was run by its sole director, the former Nationalist MP Noel Buttigieg Scicluna. As reported in Offshore- Alert, the company network was replete with red flags, evi- dent after Les Petits Fourmies filed its accounts for 2015 and 2016 only in 2019. According to auditors Pricewaterhouse- Coopers, they were unable to satisfy themselves on the re- coverability of the loans that Les Petits Fourmies was mak- ing to related companies and subsidiaries. Dusoruth now faces a charge of fraudulent inducement to deposit or invest and another of transferring criminal prop- erty. He is also charged with three counts of transmission of false information to the Bermuda Monetary Authority. Dusoruth was arrested and charged with the offences, but failed to appear in Magis- trates' Court on 21 March and an arrest warrant was issued. Malta companies at the centre of Bermuda fraud case JAMES DEBONO JUST 18 out of a total 68 zon- ing applications presented in 2019 have been published on the Planning Authority's web- site. Zoning applications, known as planning control applica- tions, set the planning parame- ters on matters like height, use and road access for particular sites. Subsequent planning per- mits are issued on the basis of the parameters set in these ap- plications. Up to May 2019, PC applica- tions were published on the PA's website at the very begin- ning of the application pro- cess. But since May the PA re- moved all pending applications deemed to be "incomplete" – including zoning applications. In this case, the site area cov- ered by these applications can- not even be traced on the Au- thority's geo-server as is the case with normal "ghost" appli- cations, whose details are still unknown but whose location can still be traced. PC applications cover a wide range of applications, ranging from small-scale changes in road alignments to proposals which set parameters for very large-scale developments. PC applications are also required to set parameters included in the infamous 2006 extension of building boundaries. Among the published PC applications of this year, one finds applications setting de- velopment parameters for the Naxxar Trade Fair site and the Merkanti coastline in Paceville. Sources in the Planning Au- thority have told MaltaToday that zoning applications which are not accessible to the public include a couple of large tracts of land, which although within building zones, are located in sensitive areas of ecological value on which ERA has al- ready expressed strong reser- vations. The pruning of public infor- mation has also affected ap- plications presented a year ago. One controversial application removed from the public in- formation system is PC 142/18 which envisages the applica- tion of the Floor Area Ratio policy (used for high and medi- um rises) for the Australia Hall site in Pembroke. A zoning application removed from the public information system envisages residential development right inside the agricultural land behind the Le Meridien car park in St Julian's. The Planning Authority has justified taking off applications because its legal obligation to publish application details and related plans only arises when the application process is fi- nalised. An application is only considered 'complete' when the application form is fully filled and all documentation required has been fully submit- ted. 74% of zoning applications not accessible to the public Among the published PC applications of this year, one finds applications setting development parameters for the Naxxar Trade Fair site and the Merkanti coastline in Paceville