Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/290775
JURGEN BALZAN ONE of the owners of the controversial Gaffarena serv- ice station in Qormi, and Labour MP Joseph Sammut are directors of an import company – International To- bacco (Malta) Limited – MaltaToday has discovered. Marco Gaffarena is a shareholder in J Gaff Service Station Ltd, whose petrol pump last month was finally granted a controversial permit by the Malta Environ- ment and Planning Authority, after having been force- fully shut down in 2008 and again in 2009 after its own- ers illegally built new structures on site. The decision to grant this temporary permit was how- ever not taken by the MEPA Board, on which Sammut sits, but by a subsidiary board. But the Labour MP was unexpectedly cagey yesterday when MaltaToday tried to solicit a comment on his busi- ness relationship with Marco Gaffarena. Both Sammut and Gaffarena are the directors of an international trading company, International Tobacco Malta, which according to the Labour MP is in liquida- tion. The shareholders are Gaffarena, Sammut's wife So- nia Sammut, and International Tobacco plc, in London. YOUR FIRST READ AND FIRST CLICK OF THE DAY WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT Newspaper post maltatoday SUNDAY • 6 APRIL 2014 • ISSUE 752 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY €1.20 DOLORES GAUCI INTERVIEWED PGS 12-13 April 2014 - Issue 52 www.vida.com.mt Get in on the street beats Spring's skater look Discover an underwater paradise off the coast of Malaysia YOUR FREE COPY OF VIDA INSIDE xxxxx CONTINUES ON PAGES 14-15 Labour MP cagey about Gaffarena association Joe Sammut, Labour's representative on the MEPA Board, refuses to talk about his association with Marco Gaffarena MEPA whistleblower finally gets justice in court, 15 years later MATTHEW VELLA IT'S been 14 years coming, but a whistleblower who took his own employer to court on various griev- ances has won his umpteenth court case against the Malta Environment and Planning Authority. Tony De Gaetano was MEPA's head of legal services in 2000, but when he decided to take the authority to court for issuing a permit which he believed had been illegal, he ended up being reprimanded and then as- signed to handle the authority's ap- peals cases while his workload was transferred elsewhere. Since then, De Gaetano – still a MEPA employee – has won defama- tion cases against MEPA officials, reversed his reprimand, and finally obtained a court's confirmation that the MEPA permit issued back in 1998 had in fact been illegal. His sidelining by MEPA also opened the door to one of the most lucrative legal contracts on the island – President Emeritus George Abela's (former) legal firm Abela Stafrace & Associates (now Abela Advocates) was given the authority's caseload, a contract that has been renewed without question since then. The latest court decision, confirm- ing the illegality of the 1998 permit and exposing the efforts made by MEPA's officials in covering up its irregularity, had been deferred for years by Mr Justice J.R. Micallef, before finally ending up in Madame Justice Lorraine Schembri Orland's lap who finally settled the matter last week. CONTINUES PAGES 6-7 Marco Gaffarena (centre) at a political benefi t for Joe Sammut, with (second from left) MDA president and Labour ativist Sandro Chetcuti. MP Joe Sammut (inset) refuses to explain his role in his company STARS ON ST GEORGE'S SQUARE • Legendary Queen guitarist Brian May (he's an astrophysist, you know!) graced St George's Square yesterday in a duet with Kerry Ellis • More photos by Ray Attard pg 3