Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/582103
2 maltatoday, WEDNESDAY, 7 OctObEr 2015 News Farmers found guilty of subsidy fraud two Mellieha farmers were found guilty of selling tomatoes grown in Sicily alongside local produce, thus giving the impression that all of it was locally sourced Matthew agius A court has handed suspended sentences to two farmers from Mellieha, after they were found to have misrepresented import- ed tomatoes as locally-grown produce at the Pitkalija and then claimed state aid subsidies. Full-time farmer Joseph At- tard, 55, and 57-year old Joseph Manuel Galea had been accused of importing seven tons of to- matoes from Sicily in 2003. Two tons of the imports were sold at the Pitkalija farmer's market, masquerading as locally grown tomatoes. Investigations began after an eagle-eyed official noticed that the tomatoes which were being sold were in too ripe a condition when compared to those grown locally. The court had heard one agri- cultural expert testify that some of the fruit had been "artificially placed" in one of the greenhous- es in such a way as to give the impression that the greenhouse was full. Galea had told the court he was a part-time farmer, his pri- mary job being that of a techni- cal officer at the abattoir. Galea insisted that his involvement with the case was limited to At- tard using his garage to store tomatoes. For his part, Attard claimed that the tomatoes he had sold at the Pitkalija were grown in his greenhouses and denied at- tempting to claim subsidies for an ineligible product. Attard claimed that he, togeth- er with Galea, had transported the tomatoes from Sicily on board the catamaran. He con- firmed that the tomatoes were stored in Galea's garage and claimed that as he had sold most of the produce on the street, he did not give any receipts. Court-appointed agricultural expert Antoine Vella had report- ed that the tomatoes were not grown locally. During his visit to the defendants' greenhouses, Vella had reported that the to- mato plants were too young to give fruit. He described finding local tomatoes scattered artifi- cially to give the impression that there were a few plants which had reached maturity, however after this he had noted a large number of empty tomato crates from Sicily in Galea's garage. While the court expert had not found any Sicilian tomatoes on the farm, he confirmed that the produce being sold at Pitkali was not locally grown. The amount of subsidy the men could have expected to benefit from was not specified, but is thought to be in the low hundreds of euros. In fact, the farmers' lawyers had argued that effectively the case revolved around a fraud of Lm1.01, although this amount was contested by the prosecu- tion. The Director of Agriculture from the Ministry for Sustain- able Development, called to testify, could not officially con- firm what the subsidy given for tomatoes was at the time, as in 2002, "subsidies were calculated over the global amount, not in- dividuals". The court, presided by Mag- istrate Consuelo Scerri Her- rera, noted that the accused had claimed to have sold the Sicilian tomatoes to third parties and denied passing it off as local produce at the Pitkalija. How- ever, they could not produce re- ceipts to prove this. She noted that for the crime of fraud to subsist, there must be an intention to obtain money by false pretences, at another's cost. In this case, said the court, a mise en scene had been created by the accused; they had gone to Sicily, imported an amount of tomatoes and then mixed them with local tomatoes to give the impression that the produce was all local and thereby could benefit from the government subsidy. The accused had failed to prove that the tomatoes found at the Pitkalija were produced locally, held the court. Nor had they proved that that the im- ported tomatoes had been sold elsewhere. The men were found guilty of defrauding the government and handed a 12-month prison sentence suspended for three years. Inspectors Kevin Farrugia and Ian Abdilla prosecuted. UHM accuses MEPA of smokescreen tactics in calling for verification exercise Mat thew agius THe UHM has filed a warrant of prohibitory injunction against the Director of employment at the Department of employment and Industrial relations, in an attempt to stop it from carrying out a verification exercise to es- tablish which union represents workers at MePA, arguing that the exercise would extend be- yond the authority's demerger. "This is a ploy to distract the unions from the demerger by drawing its focus on verification. Workers should have the right to choose the union of their own choice," UHM secretary gen- eral Josef Vella told journalists outside the law courts. "The MePA CeO decided to request the verification on the eve of the demerger." The other union is an in-house union. Vella described the verification exercise as pointless, adding that it was clearly a manoeuvre on MePA's part to have the un- ions squabble over recognition instead of discussing the condi- tions in the new entities. "At the end of the day, it is the management who must request the director of employment to carry out the verification exer- cise. I expected the management to say that it is pointless to do so now. Better to focus on the de- merger and rights of the workers and then deal with verification." The UHM is arguing that as a verification exercise has only re- cently been carried out, this ex- ercise cannot be repeated before the lapse of one year. Until then the new union is not be able to claim it represents the workers and therefore, representation of UHM . "The point is, with something so important, instead of saying who is going to do what after MePA dissolves, we are looking at who has the representation." MEPA claims UHM does not represent majority In a statement issued later yes- terday afternoon, MePA pointed out that the authority's manage- ment initiated the process of a membership verification exer- cise after last July it had received an official claim by another inhouse union (UTAC) that it should be the official recognised union at MePA. "Upon receiving this claim, MePA Management attempted to address the membership veri- fication issue with UHM, how- ever UHM declined to give any information pertaining to its members," MePA said. It said that from the current payslips "it is clear that the UTAC have far more paid mem- bers than the UHM which ac- cording to the same Collective Agreement the recognised Un- ion is that which has 50 % +1." To ensure transparency and an independent process, MePA said it chose to refer the union recognition issue to the Director of employment and Industrial Relations for the verification ex- ercise to be carried out under his auspices. MePA reiterated that it would have been impertinent to the employees and also unlawful had it chosen to ignore the claim made by the in-house union and not started the required proc- ess. Gzira man denies fraud, misappropriation and trading in influence Matthew agius A 26-year-old from Gzira has been remanded in cus- tody after he was arraigned on charges of fraud, theft, misap- propriation and trading in in- f luence. Thomas Camilleri, who is un- employed, pleaded not guilty to defrauding three men out of a total of €1,000, stealing a Playstation video game con- sole, misappropriating a Sam- sung Galaxy S4 mobile phone and trading in inf luence be- tween July and late September this year. The circumstances surrounding the latter charge did not emerge in court. Magistrate Consuelo Scerri Herrera granted Camilleri bail against a deposit of €1,000 and a personal guarantee of €5,000, also placing him un- der a curfew. Inspector Jonathan Rans- ley prosecuted while lawyers Franco Debono and Marion Camilleri were defence coun- sel.