Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/594552
YOUR FIRST READ AND FIRST CLICK OF THE DAY WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT maltatoday Newspaper post SUNDAY • 1 NOVEMBER 2015 • ISSUE 834 • PUBLISHED EVERY WEDNESDAY AND SUNDAY €1.40 November 2015 - Issue 71 www.vida.com.mt DECODING FOOD LABELS THE MALTA COMIC CON Space adventures and sexy witchcraft STREET STYLE Taking personal style to the streets 15 14 AARON FARRUGIA Meet someone who loves politics and wants to reach the top... some day INTERVIEWED 51 WIN! Free flights with Air Malta Revealed: €8,000 bill Gaffarena paid JURGEN BALZAN THE Nationalist MP and former health minister who claimed in Parliament that property entrepreneur Joe Gaffarena had "nothing to do with the construction of his house in Dingli", had an €8,150 bill for construction works at his Dingli farm- house paid by Gaffarena. MaltaToday can confirm that despite his efforts at def lecting questions related to donations by Gaffarena – among them a home CCTV system and a car for his family – Joe Cassar had works done at his Dingli home that were financed by the Gaffarena patriarch, a long-time Na- tionalist donor whose rupture with the PN came in 2008 when he was denied a permit for his petrol pump's illegal exten- sion. The construction works were carried out at a time when Cassar was health minister, implying that he should have declared Gaffarena's financing as a gift. But in a speech in the House on Thurs- Joe Gaffarena paid a €8,150 bill for construction works carried out at MP's Dingli home Cassar paid €1,000 donation to PN a year after 'purchasing' car from Gaffarena's son Former minister sold car days after revelation of Gaffarena expropriation scandal day where he claimed his family was be- ing threatened by "blackmail" and that he was the victim of a frame-up, Joe Cassar told MPs that he never had a " judicial rela- tionship" with Gaffarena in relation to the construction of his house. The statement was a reference at an ear- lier speech by parliamentary secretary for lands Michael Falzon, who without men- tioning Cassar by name, insinuated that an MP had works done for him by a par- ticular donor. Now MaltaToday is in possession of a document dated 14 December 2011, show- ing that Joe Gaffarena paid construction company Devlands Ltd for the construc- tion of a stone staircase, a water reservoir, a rubble wall and soil landscaping at Cas- sar's Dingli home "by method of barter of fuel from J. Gaff Petrol Station". Another receipt seen by MaltaToday shows that Gaffarena also paid an €800 bill for a CCTV security system, of which Cassar told Parliament that he had "spent various months running after this install- er to pay him, only to be avoided". In recent months, Cassar has been fran- tically calling up various contractors ask- ing them for invoices for works carried out in his farmhouse in Dingli although many of them – including the company that in- stalled Cassar's security system – cannot issue a new invoice since Gaffarena had al- ready been invoiced for the works. Construction works paid in 2011 when Cassar was health minister PAGES 6-7 FREE WITH MALTATODAY PHOTOGRAPHY BY RAY ATTARD