Parliamentary Secretary for EU Funds Ian Borg has not answered specific questions from this newspaper on whether he will continue to use the services of the Panama Papers-embroiled Redmap Projects Ltd for the construction of his already controversial development in Rabat’s Santa Katerina valley.

Questioned by this newspaper specifically on his continued engagement of Redmap as the turnkey contractors for his Rabat matrimonial home-to-be, whether he would disassociate himself from the scandal-implicated company and whether he would continue using the company’s services in light of all that has transpired, Dr Borg’s office would not specify.

Dr Borg’s office did not reply to these pointed questions, choosing to instead comment that, “He [Dr Borg] has no other relationship with Redmap Projects Ltd or with any of its directors. It is purely a normal relationship between a client and his/her contractor.”

This clearly implies that Dr Borg has no intention of cancelling his contract with Redmap and that he will continue to use the company’s services.

He has chosen this course of action despite the fact that Redmap Projects Ltd and its owner, Pierre Sladden, have been implicated in the Panama Papers scandal and the fact that Mr Sladden is the focus of a subsequent investigation by the Maltese tax authorities. 

This is also despite the fact that the Labour Party at large has taken Opposition Deputy Leader Mario de Marco heavily to task over his use of Redmap Projects for work on a property he owns.

Dr Borg’s office did state that his contract with Redmap “was signed when works effectively started on the ground” and that “Redmap Projects Ltd obligations are half-way through and still on-going.”

Mr Sladden and Redmap were last month linked to the Panama Papers scandal.  According to the revelations from the Panama Papers, Mr Sladden last November assigned an invoice of almost US$1 million to a British Virgin Islands company. He has also been shown to be involved in another two companies with the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri, who has also been embroiled in the scandal.

Information released by the Australian Financial Review last month showed that Redmap owed a Cypriot company, A2Z Consulta, close to US$1 million for “the provision of services consisting in quality checks and negotiation with suppliers”.

The government has since ordered the Tax Compliance Unit to commence a tax evasion investigation into Mr Sladden and his company Redmap as a result of the Panama Papers information.

Documents tabled in Parliament have missing information

This newspaper sent Dr Borg a number of pointed questions based on the documents he had tabled in Parliament, documents which showed a number of inconsistencies and gaps in the information presented.

Documents tabled in Parliament on 19 April by Dr Borg included an incomplete bill of quantities from Redmap, together with a two-page contract dated 2 October 2015. 

Unusually for a turnkey contractor, the bill comprises of cost estimates only for building and concrete work, which are set out on pages 12 to 31 under sections D to J.  Sections A to C, which are presumably set out on pages 1 to 12, were completely missing from the documentation.

The bill of quantities is referred to Dr Borg’s 2 October contract with Redmap, but there is no reference to the incomplete nature of the bill, neither on the bill, nor on the contract.  No reference to or explanation about its incomplete nature was given by Dr Borg in Parliament.

The Malta Independent on Sunday asked Dr Borg a number of questions about the missing information, including a repeated request for the pages missing from the bill of quantities.  At the time of going to print, the missing pages have not yet been made available. 

In a reply however, Dr Borg’s office confirmed that the missing sections “related to the (a) preliminary preparations (b) demolition and excavations (c) foundations” and that “these works were carried out by other... contractors,” namely Central Asphalt Limited, Terracore Limited and Ballut Blocks Services Limited. Those invoices were presented in Parliament but they are not represented in the bill of quantities.  Moreover, the number of pages attributable to those invoices falls short of the number of pages missing from the bill of quantities.  The lacuna remains unexplained.  Moreover, it is not clear why, despite our repeated requests, sections A to C are not being been made available.

The missing information means that it is still not possible to form a complete picture as to whether the works carried out by Central Asphalt, Terracore and Ballut Blocks were carried out under the turnkey services of Redmap and were specifically listed on pages 1 to 11 under sections A to C, or whether they were contracted separately by Dr Borg.  The contract with Redmap specifically allows Redmap to engage sub-contractors.

Establishing this fact is important in ascertaining the precise nature of the involvement of Redmap in Dr Borg’s project.

This matter is especially unclear because although Dr Borg presented a contract dated 2 October 2015 with Redmap, Redmap’s name had been used since the commencement of the project on a legally required signage affixed on site which stated that Redmap was the “lead contractor” and that the project commencement date was 14 February 2015.

The matter is further complicated by the fact that Dr Borg did not table any contracts with the other contractors, and our questions about this absence remained unanswered.  Similarly, Dr Borg did not answer our request for a categorical statement that the three contractors listed above were not sub-contractors of Redmap, and whether he had negotiated with them directly. 

It is as of yet unclear why Dr Borg entered into a contract with Redmap but did not enter into contracts with other contractors for works which run into several tens of thousands of euros and which are literally fundamental to the safety of his property if those contractors were not subcontractors of Redmap.

Dr Borg had claimed with the Commissioner for Environment and Planning that he had appointed a third party to apply for the MEPA permit “because of his (Borg’s) heavy schedule of work.”  It is as such unclear why he would have resorted to a turnkey contractor like Redmap but then negotiated directly with individual works contractors, in some cases without a contract in areas of high risk in which he is not known to be a specialist.

According to Dr Borg, sections A to C of the bill of quantities referred also to “preliminary preparations.” Without the relevant pages of the bill of quantities, it is not possible to precisely establish what such “preliminary preparations” include, and particularly whether they include the MEPA application processes.