PN MPs Jason Azzopardi and Ryan Callus today hit out at the government for having paid off the debts of Café Premier’s operators, Cities Entertainment, when it paid them a bail-out of €4,200,000, calling on the Auditor General to investigate.

This, Dr Azzopardi said, could easily have been avoided since the government could have easily terminated the contract and taken back the property without having to pay all that money.

Dubbing the government’s move as scandalous, Dr Azzopardi said that this was conveying the wrong message to other companies who are on the brink of bankruptcy, since the government should incentivise such companies not simply pay off their debts, as has happened in the case of Café Premier’s operators.

Mr Callus said that he strongly doubts the government would pay off the debts of other citizens.

Giving a sequence of events tied to the issue of Café Premier, Mr Callus said that in December 2012 the Lands Department, under Dr Azzopardi’s watch, kicked off court proceedings against Cities Entertainment on ground rent arrears. Cities Entertainment, in turn, opened proceedings against the Lands Department.

In March 2013, a new Labour government was elected to power and a few months down the line requested the Lands Department to halt proceedings against the operators.

In November 2013, Mario Camilleri, one of the company’ directors, reached an agreement with John Sciberras, an advisor of the Prime Minister, after a political decision was taken by Prime Minister Joseph Muscat’s cabinet.

In January 2014, 4.2 million euros were paid to Cities Entertainment by the government so that the operators could settle their outstanding bills, such as ground rent arrears and water and electricity bills.

The PN said that 210,000 euros were paid in commissions to one of the directors, Mario Camilleri.

Dr Azzopardi said that this is cronyism in its finest form, branding the government ‘sleazy’.

He said that this buried the Labour government’s transparency pledge.

“This is not right for the law abiding entrepreneur and citizen; such a move creates an unleveled playing field,” he said.

Two sections of the media also filed a freedom of information request so that the Department of Lands publishes the workings of the bail out, but the requests were turned down. The requests were turned down on the pretext that the police investigation had not been concluded.

But Dr Azzopardi said that the police investigation was finalised at the time so it is no excuse.