Developer Vincent Farrugia, who owns an apartment block in Spinola Road has appeared before the Public Accounts Committee this evening and said that he had never met with Jason Azzopardi, who at the time of the controversial deal, was Minister responsible for Lands.

Back in 2003, the Lands Commission had started legal proceedings against Farrugia following the illegal development of a block of apartments. The property included a part which sat on the forshore. The court had ordered the demolition of the building after a decision by the court of appeals in 2009.

Farrugia insisted before the committee that he had bought the land in good faith and was not aware of any issues. A decision was taken to have the property sold by tender and Vincent Farrugia was offered the right of first refusal. The price agreed upon stood at €300,000.

Despite the agreement, Farrugia said that the government of the time had instructed that the property is not sold for less than €525,000.

For this PAC session, the PN was represented by Beppe Fenech Adami, Kristy Debono, Claudio Grech while Robert Abela, Julia Farrugia Portelli and Clayton Bartolo represented the government.

Farrugia insisted, during the session, that it was being implied that he had met with then minister Jason Azzopardi but denied this completely. He said he never met him because he was not particularly fond of him personally or of the Nationalist Party.