Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1508267
3 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 24 SEPTEMBER 2023 NEWS LEJLA FIL-PARK Ikel, Saħħa u Sport TA' SETTEMBRU PM SA PM ILPARK NAZZJONALI TA' QALI PICNIC AREA JIPPREŻENTAW DANUSAN DĦUL B'XEJN Żvilupp Sostenibbli kon Ltd. In 2010, the Farrugia broth- ers discovered that their own brother was siphoning off business from Powerplan, and commissioned audit firm FST Consulting to examine the company's computers. E-mails found on the per- sonal computers of George Farrugia and his wife had been addressed to officials from Totsa, Total's Geneva-based subsidiary, and Trafigura B.V. with attachments of invoices on the letterheads of both Ai- kon and Powerplan. The invoices discovered add- ed up to some $1.56 million for the period 2004 and 2008. The investigative report es- timated that Farrugia had si- phoned off some $8.6 million (€6.4 million) worth of com- missions from Powerplan to his company. Nonetheless, the company declared sales of some €55,000, €49,000 and €24,000 respectively for 2006, 2007 and 2008. The oil trader set up his com- pany Aikon's bank account at the Edmond de Rothschild bank in Geneva some time in 2004; but his brothers sued him in 2010 for having fun- nelled cash from Powerplan into his Swiss bank account, at their detriment. After MaltaToday broke news of the Enemalta scandal and illegal commissions in January 2013, former Enemal- ta chairman Tancred Tabone and business partner Frank Sammut, businessmen Francis Portelli and Anthony Cassar, were charged in court. The case is still ongoing. But in 2014, police also filed charges against Farrugia's five brothers, all principals of the Johns Group, accused of knowing of their brother's kickbacks system. Decade of court delays Since then, many of the people accused by Farrugia as having accepted his 'gifts' have also been acquitted. In 2021, the ineffectiveness of the Maltese prosecution in the oil scandal after 2013 were placed in a harsh light by the Constitutional Court, in a fair hearing complaint by a former Enemalta functionary, Tarci- sio Mifsud. The Constitutional Court, presided by Chief Justice Mark Chetcuti, said that in 27 sittings for the compilation of evidence against Mifsud, nothing had happened in 15. And after issuing charges in 2015, the Attorney General prevented a summary proce- dure by imposing a condition to have two other criminal suspects testify. This delayed any resolution by an addition- al 14 sittings "in which ab- solutely nothing happened," Chetcuti said. "It is undeniably the unique shortcoming of the prosecu- tion as well as of the Attorney General, which tied the hands of the magistrates' court," Chetcuti berated the AG in his decision on the case against the then-76-year-old Mifsud. "At his advanced age, he has every right to have these pro- ceedings take place within a reasonable peirod of time, even as one of the co-accused Alfred Mallia passed away over the course of these de- lays. So what is the prosecu- tion waiting for? That all the witnesses die, including Tarci- sio Mifsud?" magius@mediatoday.com.mt George Farrugia