Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/244624
8 News maltatoday, SUNDAY, 19 JANUARY 2014 OLAF chief did not give Zammit 24 hours' notice for interrogation A witness to Giovanni Kessler's interrogation of Silvio Zammit said the OLAF chief provided a back-dated note to appear to be in line with agency rules MATTHEW VELLA OLAF director Giovanni Kessler may have breached a 24-hour obligation to forewarn Silvio Zammit – charged in a Maltese court of soliciting a €60 million bribe from a Swedish tobacco manufacturer – that he would be interviewed by the EU's anti-fraud agency. In court last week during the compilation of evidence against Zammit, witness Mario Debono from the Internal Audit and Investigation Department (IAID) said he gave Zammit a handwritten note on 4 July summoning him for an interview the next day at the IAID offices with Kessler. Debono however told the court that the handwritten note was backdated to 3 July. According to the EU regulation on OLAF investigations (883/2013), Article 9(2) states that an invitation to an interview has to be sent to a person concerned with at least 10 working days' notice. "That notice period may be shortened with the express consent of the person concerned or on duly reasoned grounds of urgency of the investigation. In the latter case, the notice period shall not be less than 24 hours." The invitation must include a list of the rights of the person concerned, in particular the right to be assisted by a person of his choice – which Zammit did not have. Kessler has already come under criticism for the way he extended the 'Dalligate' investigation into the alleged €60 million bribe, from an internal OLAF investigation dealing with the EU institutions, to an external investigation on EU funds so that he could fly to Malta and interrogate Silvio Zammit. OLAF rules do not allow officials to conduct interviews outside the EU institutions. But Kessler created a contrived investigation on EU funds so that he could interview Zammit – then a deputy mayor for Sliema – and asked OLAF's internal review unit (ISRU) to extend the "internal" investigation into an "external" one. When it first received the Swedish Match complaint, ISRU said the allegation that Zammit had solicited a €60 million bribe to influence John Dalli in lifting the retail ban on snus, had a possible impact on the EU institutions, but no potential impact on the EU's financial impact: which meant that the ensuing investigation was an "internal investigation". Kessler could only interrogate Giovanni Kessler Zammit in Malta if his investigation was extended into an "external" one by the ISRU, that is, an investigation taking place outside the EU institutions and requiring on-the-spot inspections in a member state. ISRU's opinion however was that the need to extend the investigation "appears doubtful" and that there was "very limited evidence in the case so far" of what financial interests could be affected to justify the spot-check at Silvio Zammit's business premises in Sliema. Despite the flimsy grounds, ISRU still proceeded to grant the exten- sion, giving Kessler the go-ahead to rope in the OPM's Internal Audit and Investigations Department, which houses OLAF's liaising partner, the anti-fraud coordination service (Afcos). This was particularly important, since the ISIP rules require that Afcos is brought in to coordinate the case with OLAF, which then "facilitates" the taking of statements. Since Afcos's remit at law is only to conduct financial investigations on EU funds, Kessler now could venture to Malta on the grounds that he was to investigate some misappropria- tion of EU funds by Silvio Zammit, who happened to be the deputy mayor of Sliema. So when Kessler and IAID head Rita Schembri first visited Zammit at his pizzeria Peppi's Kiosk in Sliema on 4 July 2012, the spot-check was made on the "external aspects" of the case. But the interview of Zammit on 5 July was on the facts relating to the internal investigation. OLAF's own supervisory committee later examined the case, and said that only two questions out of the 41 in the Zammit interrogation dealt with EU funds. €1 million budget for national bus company JAMES DEBONO THE Finance Ministry allocated €1 million in the form of a government shareholding for the set-up of the Malta Public Transport Services Ltd, the national public transport company that took over the Arriva Malta operations. The budgetary vote was allocated at the end of 2013, but beyond the initial €1 million, the government has made no further allocations, a ministry spokesperson told MaltaToday. The public transport service was nationalised in the beginning of 2014 after Arriva transferred its assets to government. The government has so far not revealed how much of Arriva's debt has been transferred to the new company, but said that the removal of a discriminatory tariff structure that charged non-Maltese residents higher fares, will cost €3 million. For the foreseeable future, MPTS will be utilising funds from the €8.5 million public service obligation budgetary allocation. "It is the government's express intention that the current monthly costs incurred by the public transport system are reduced through efficiency gains, and do not increase above the levels reached in December 2013, notwithstanding any managerial changes that may take place," a spokesperson for the finance ministry said. The spokesperson excluded any effect on the government's deficit. While admitting that the full picture of the impact could not be fully ascertained as yet, the spokesperson said the government was determined to ensure that the current deficit targets are not affected. "As with any other unforeseen public expenditure, the cost of rescuing the public transport system must be absorbed within the current budget in a manner that ensures that the deficit target for 2014 remains unchanged." €243,000 weekly for UBS In a reply to a parliamentary question, Transport Minister Joe Mizzi revealed that the government is paying the Unscheduled Bus Service company €35,472 a day to use 40 coaches as an alternative to the bendy buses. On Sundays, when 36 cars are used, the government pays €32,572. Passengers are not expected to pay the driver when they use these coaches but passengers are expected to buy their tickets from ticketing machines. This means that the substitution of bendy buses alone is costing an extra €1 million a month. Transport Malta CEO James Piscopo has excluded substituting these coaches before a new private operator is found. "It wouldn't be realistic to replace any of the private coaches which replaced the bendy-buses, with newer, environmentally-friendly buses before a new operator is engaged."