The Malta Independent on Sunday staff
With less than a week to go before Saturday’s general election, the parties are battling it out by hurling scandal allegations at each other, hoping ‘their’ scandal gives them the edge in very close stakes, but so far only succeeding in neutralising the scandal raised by the other party.
Labour attacked first by targeting young MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando regarding an application for a discotheque in Mistra, after leading him a merry dance in Gozo, which upset his plans to be present when Dr Sant made the allegations.
Dr Pullicino Orlando then gave a press conference later on in the evening at which he came out with an allegation that Labour’s Deputy Leader Charles Mangion and former minister Karmenu Vella leased three flats to the Freeport at a time when the Freeport management was being attacked by the Labour leader and then did not register their income in the declarations made to MFSA.
Dr Pullicino Orlando had been rushing to wherever Dr Sant held a press conference for two whole days. He said yesterday that dissidents within the Labour Party had informed the Nationalist Party that Dr Sant was about to target him.
So he turned up at Mepa for Dr Sant’s press conference but Dr Sant, who Dr Pullicino Orlando said was perturbed when he found him there, did not refer to him at all.
Yesterday morning, Dr Pullicino Orlando followed Dr Sant to Gozo but again Dr Sant did not refer to him at all.
When Dr Sant’s meeting in Gozo was over, according to Dr Pullicino Orlando, the Labour media surrounded him and started asking him many questions: why had he gone to the activity, did he have a press card, if he went there to defend his party why did he not say anything when Dr Sant spoke about another report on the health services and their financing that Dr Sant had just made public?
Too late Dr Pullicino Orlando realised that the purpose of all these questions was to make him miss the next ferry back to Malta.
Meanwhile, rather unusually for a media organisation that usually plans and announces its events well in advance, Labour informed the media at around 12.15pm that Dr Sant would hold a press conference at Mistra at 1pm.
Dr Sant described a Mepa permit for a discotheque that can take 4,000 people at Mistra as a scandal of the first order. The disco is on land owned by Dr Pullicino Orlando and is sited Outside Development Zone.
Dr Sant distributed no less than three dossiers on this development and a book by journalist Aleander Balzan on this and other ‘scandals’.
The blurb for the book reads L-Iskandlu tal-Mistra u Skandli Ohra and expands on the revelations made yesterday afternoon by the Leader of the Opposition where Mepa has just approved the use of protected agricultural land owned by Nationalist MP Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando for the building of a disco, which is already being marketed as Spin Valley Disco. The publication seeks to cover the cases involving corruption in high places that have become the main issue of the current election campaign.
The accusations levelled at a number of public figures range from the case of the disco to be built in Mistra Bay against all expert recommendations and the objections raised by several NGOs to the Qala projects involving PN Young Turks who found themselves embroiled in undesirable intrigue.
The book carries no less than 10 stories revealing conflict of interests, cover-up attempts and cloak-and-dagger dealings in a veritable portrayal of the culture of concealment against a backdrop described by sociologists as the “bystander effect”.
A whole gamut of highly placed personalities is taken to task over a plethora of shady business deals, kickbacks and sheer favouritism.
The book reads like a whodunit with a difference. The culprits are invariably exposed and vilified in a no-holds barred fashion. “They are now expected to hold their own if they can,” says journalist Aleander Balzan who researched the hot material. Will they?
The publication seeks to cover the cases involving corruption in high places that have become the main issue of the current election campaign.
The book is selling at leading bookshops and during MLP public activities.”
Dr Sant told the press conference that Dr Pullicino Orlando in 1998 was permitted to restore a room on this site on condition that he uses this room to store farming tools. That same year Dr Pullicino Orlando registered as a part-time farmer and applied to dig a well, but this was refused.
In February 1999 he again applied for a well but again this was refused.
In October 2005 another person applied for a nightclub measuring 2,000 sq m, one third of a football ground, capable of holding 4,000. The person who applied made it clear the land did not belong to him and that he was acting on behalf of somebody else.
In March 2006, Mepa’s planning directorate told DCC that this application should be refused because the site was ODZ, is considered a Natura 2000 area, has organic farming in the vicinity and there were also illegal developments on site itself as a structure was built and air-conditioning installed.
Despite all this, Dr Sant added, last November, the DCC board, the same board that has now resigned, issued a permit for the discotheque on the advice of the MTA.
In December yet another application was lodged asking that the nightclub be enlarged from 2,000 sq. m. to 4,000 sq. m. to hold 8,000 people. This club, as mentioned earlier, is already being advertised as the Spin Club.
Dr Sant added the land belongs to De Rohan Antiques Ltd, which in 2001 was 100 per cent owned by Dr Pullicino Orlando. According to documents submitted by Dr Pullicino Orlando and distributed by Dr Sant, he does not get any lease money from this land.
Dr Sant asked what Prime Minister Gonzi had to say about this. After all, Dr Pullicino Orlando was voted as the Green Politician of the Year recently and many see him as a potential minister in a new PN administration.
Writing in yesterday’s The Times, Dr Pullicino Orlando said: “I own a plot of land near the sea that has been rented out to others for some time now. Three years ago, these others applied for a permit to build an underground lavatory and an open-air dance floor less than two metres high. The only thing close is a well-known restaurant.
“The application has been pending all this time and no final decision has been made. I don’t even know the applicants. I have never met them.”
Dr Pullicino Orlando had more or less said the same at yesterday evening’s press conference.
He also announced that tomorrow he would be asking his lawyer to sue Dr Sant for libel; he denied corrupting anybody so that the person who leased the land from him obtains his permit.
Meanwhile, Peter Gingell, Mepa’s Communication Officer said outline PA 5880/05 for open-air entertainment was submitted in October 2005. Subsequently, and separately, outline application 5208/07 was submitted by MTA for the embellishment of Mistra Bay.
On 12 November 2007 the DCC board approved outline application 5880/05 but for development to begin the next step would be the approval of the full development application. However, for this to be considered Mepa would first have to approve the MTA application.
Mepa, concluded the statement, clarifying that the MTA application has not been approved so far and the Planning Directorate is recommending refusal. The date for the consideration of this application has not yet been set.
In yet another statement, One News head Miriam Dalli denied it had been a One News journalist that made Dr Pullicino Orlando miss the ferry but journalists from the independent media. And, she added, One News has documentary evidence Dr Pullicino Orlando left the area before the One News journalists and they managed to catch the ship on time.
The Mangion – Vella flats
After rebutting the attack on him, Dr Pullicino Orlando went on the attack by claiming a scandal on Labour’s front bench.
Mirca Properties Limited is a company owned by Labour’s Deputy Leader Charles Mangion and former minister Karmenu Vella.
On 2 January 1995, at a time when the Labour leader was hotly attacking Freeport’s then head Marin Hili, Mirca Properties leased three flats to Malta Freeport. Dr Mangion and Mr Vella signed the deed themselves.
The lease varied from Lm8,000 to Lm12,000 a year and Mirca received cheques regularly from the Malta Freeport that were regularly cashed.
But the Financial Statements that the company submitted to MFSA, such as for 1997 when Dr Sant was in office, and the company had received Lm9,468 in rent, it claimed that it had not been operational that year and claimed Lm5,803 as expenses.
Dr Pullicino Orlando also claimed that Mirca had made false declarations to the Inland Revenue Department but did not substantiate his claim.