Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/806571
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 2 APRIL 2017 3 News Refalo mum on art collection CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Refalo's col- lection is well known locally to col- lectors of art. In one account of his assiduous hoarding, Refalo was noted purchasing a Mattia Preti sketch of a figure from the ceiling of St John's Cathedral, purchased for Lm30,000 (approx.. €69,900). In 2010, he ac- quired the desk of former Nationalist prime minister George Borg Olivier for €25,000. Ministers or MPs are not requested to declare personal luxury items in their declarations of assets, which comprise immoveable properties, shares and banking deposits, company director- ships and financial interests, and other earnings such as honoraria, their incomes and any loans. But the acquisition and ex- change of artwork in Malta is a business unto itself, which like property, often employs the 'speculation' of appraisers and historians to bump up values. Refalo was also asked by this newspaper to explain how he financed his purchase of works of art, and to list the works of art he owned apart from those by Mattia Preti, and when he last purchased a work of art from a foreign auction or source. Last week, MaltaToday reported that Refalo had purchased a Mattia Preti painting in a Sotheby's auction for the princely sum of $401,211 (€371,233) using the Gozo ministry's budget, de- spite Heritage Malta – the national agency responsible for national herit- age and works of art – expressing its opinion that it would not have consid- ered purchasing it. The spend, which includes the de- livery to the as-yet unopened Gozo Museum in Rabat, almost totals the entire value of acquisitions by Herit- age Malta made since 2014. Paintings were available on the mar- ket which were far cheaper than the painting indicated for purchase by the Gozo ministry: Sotheby's was indeed estimating to sell the painting between $200,000 and $300,000, but ended up selling it to the Gozo ministry for $396,500. The purchase is one of the largest single purchases by a Maltese ministry for any one painting. Heritage Malta's own list of acquisitions since 2014, provided by the authority itself, is of €388,000 alone, and that includes the €75,000 acquisition for the Preti self- portrait last year. Property-rich minister Anton Refalo's ministerial declara- tions garnered particular attention for the long list of properties he has ac- quired over the years. In recent years, he has insisted that he has declared all rental income in his ministerial declaration to parliament. According to his tax returns, in 2013 he declared €13,500 in rental income and a property maintenance reduction of €2,700. From tax returns dating since 2008, this was the only year in which Refalo declared rental income in his tax return, as provided to this newspaper by the parliament. The rental income is related to part of a large number of properties he declared in his 2013 parliamentary declara- tions – no less than 16, com- prising of at least 11 apartments in Gozo as well as two others in Malta, apart from various other residences, offices, and land. Refalo has refused to declare whether he had rented out any property before 2012, and to explain from which properties his €13,500 rental income de- rived in 2013 – when he was made a minister. In his 2015 declaration, Re- falo said that in 2014 he regis- tered €7,200 rental income. Refalo has in the past said that up until 2012, the properties were in the hands of his parents, up until the death of his father at the start of 2013, when he inherited the proper- ties. "From then on, these rents were declared for tax, and the tax due was paid. This rental income was also de- clared in ministerial declarations I submitted from 2013 onwards." Refalo has also declared a total of €693,000 in loans in his last parlia- mentary declaration in 2015. CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1 Rumours of a November election spread like wildfire as soon as aides stationed inside some ministerial secretariats upped sticks and left their offices to start work inside the reactivated fourth floor at the Labour party headquarters at Mile End – now synonymous with the sleek 'Malta Tagh- na Wkoll' campaign that led Muscat to his landslide victory in 2013. Strategy meetings and fo- cus groups are in full swing, together with daily tracking of potential voting trends. The insider who spoke to MaltaToday said the mood is positive. "Muscat is still open to a 2018 option but he gave the go-ahead for the party ma- chinery to be reignited back in January, with the possi- bility of an immediate elec- tion after an early October budget. "His advisers are push- ing him to take up the No- vember election option, now encouraged by strong trust ratings, and the party financing saga that dead- legged the PN," the well- placed source said of the revelations that the db Group had bankrolled the salaries of the PN's secre- tary general and CEO. Crucially, Muscat's high profile visibility throughout the Maltese presidency of the European Council, and a booming economy which in 2016 registered a surplus, has confirmed that the first practicable opportunity for an election – in November – should not be lost. Economy minister Chris Cardona himself clearly hinted that Labour was get- ting ready to "switch on its machines in preparation for the election" after the end of the Presidency in June, in a speech two weeks ago in Gzira. Labour is taking advan- tage of being better oiled than the financially crippled Nationalist Party, especially with its pre-electoral Budg- et this year promising to be the right prelude to an elec- tion campaign. In the latest MaltaTo- day survey, while Labour was leading the PN by four points, Muscat was enjoy- ing a trust lead of 7.1 points over Simon Busuttil, slight- ly up from 6.8 points in No- vember. An extrapolation of the survey, when undecided re- spondents and those intent on not voting are not taken into account, would put the PL at 51%, the PN at 45.1%, AD at 1.6% and the PD and the far-right Patriots at 0.9%. Insiders said no new star candidates have yet been mooted, apart from some new faces such as lawyer Robert Abela, son of the for- mer President George Abela. Aides decamp to Mile End The $400,000 Preti masterpiece which Anton Refalo's ministry acquired for the Gozo museum