Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/468421
WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT WEDNESDAY EDITION WEDNESDAY • 25 February 2015 • issue 404 • published every wednesday and sunday €1.00 Newspaper post Ministers say they've declared all • PAGE 3 NAO delivers damning indictment on €4.2 million Café Premier bailout Email shows MRA director asked oil trader George Farrugia for advice to minister SAVIOUR BALZAN AN email by Malta Resources Author- ity director Godwin Sant to pardoned oil trader George Farrugia refers to ad- vice which could be given to "George" – presumably former resources minister George Pullicino – in preparation for a legislative draft on petrol stations. Sant, then energy director at the MRA, used his Gmail account on 24 March 2009, to ask Farrugia whether he should advise "George" about announcing the ho- listic change in the petrol station upgrade that week. MaltaToday was unable to make contact with former minister George Pullicino, and there is no evidence that he was aware of the Sant-Farrugia link. Several tele- phone and SMS attempts to contact Pul- licino, who was abroad, proved futile. Sant and Farrugia are both on police bail in connection with a criminal investiga- tion on the procurement of oil for Enemal- ta purchases corruption scandal, and their cosy relationship in which the oil trader was kept abreast of government policies through Sant. In his email to Farrugia, Sant – until re- cently appointed to the energy ministry's water conservation unit – acts as advi- sor to Farrugia, suggesting the company VOPAK for storage technology, pointing out to him that VOPAK are "bigger than Oiltanking". Farrugia held a monopoly on the con- struction of petrol pump stations on the island. Sant, who may yet be arraigned by the police, has been shown to have received free soccer tickets from oil giant Trafigura at the request of George Farrugia. MaltaToday has also revealed that Sant kept Farrugia abreast of confidential min- utes related to changes in petrol station policy. Farrugia was commissioned to construct five petrol pump stations between 2008 and 2013, at a time when the green light for fuel pump development depended on Godwin Sant. In February 2013, Farrugia was given a presidential pardon to tell police about his role in devising a bribes system for senior Enemalta officials to facilitate the procure- ment of oil from Trafigura and TOTSA for the state utility corporation. MaltaToday report on bailout for Café Premier owners vindicated by Auditor General's report which finds poor governance and lack of documentation justifying OPM's decison to buy back lease MATTHEW VELLA A damning, and embarrassing indictment of the way the new Labour administration rushed to pay the private company Cities Entertain- ment (CE) the sum of €4.2 million to buy back its public lease of the Café Premier, was pub- lished yesterday in the House of Representa- tives. The report by the National Audit Office, re- quested by the Opposition, was spurred on by MaltaToday's first report back in February 2014 when it broke the story that the Government Property Department (GPD) had withdrawn legal action for the rescission of CE's lease, de- spite having fallen back on some €250,000 in ground rent. Instead, on the advice of former GPD director and advisor to the Prime Minister, John Sciber- ras, the Cabinet approved a €4.2 million bailout to buy back the 65-year lease on the café in Old Theatre Street, Valletta; which money was used to pay the State back on outstanding rents, en- ergy bills, VAT and tax, as well as Banif Bank loans of €2 million and a €210,000 fee to CE's shareholder Mario Camilleri for brokering the deal with John Sciberras. The NAO found a "lack of rigorous and docu- mented consideration of other options" such as the legally justified rescission of the lease; "poor governance" with the Prime Minister's negoti- ating team failing to involve the GPD from the initial stages of negotiations; an absence of doc- umentation to sustain government claims that there was a danger to the overlying National Library by gas cylinders in the café; and that a 5% commission for CE's shareholder was "un- substantiated and… inappropriately included in the agreement." The government yesterday said that it had taken note of the NAO report and that it would take the necessary safeguards to see that "simi- lar shortcomings will not be repeated in fu- ture." But Opposition leader Simon Busuttil laid the blame at the feet of Prime Minister Joseph Muscat, pointing out in a tweet that he was the minister politically reponsible for the Café Pre- mier "scandal". Indeed, the NAO report shows that it was Muscat's advisor John Sciberras who led the negotiations with Cities Entertainment. CONTINUES PAGE 2 PHOTOGRAPHY BY RAY ATTARD CONTINUES PAGE 3