Clearly had the Gaffarena scandal happened in any Western democracy worth its salt, the government would have tendered its resignation and the country would have gone for an immediate election. 

No Western democracy can afford that such a scandal happens under the Prime Minister’s watch without facing the political consequences. Finally, our Prime Minister happens to be also the minister responsible for the Lands Department, the department at the centre of the scandal.

Despite what has been stated by the Prime Minister, this is the first time in modern Maltese history that the Lands Department was under the direct aegis of the Prime Minister, and never, in its entire history, was this Department so much in the news for the wrong reasons. I wish to recall that during the Labour government, between 1971 and 1987, the Department of Lands was under Minister Lorry Sant, who is dubbed as the most corrupt minister in the entire history of Maltese politics. But even back then, Lands was never in the news with allegations of corruption related to government property.

It should be remembered that scandals at the Lands Department started under Falzon’s predecessor, Michael Farrugia. Back then, there was no forced resignation but I am sure that the issues surrounding the Australia Hall and Café Premier were the reason why Farrugia was promoted to the Ministry of Social Policy. Despite this change, new stories started once again to emerge in the media. The most notorious two were the expropriation of the Old Mint Street property or as it has now become popularly known the Gaffarena scandal and the redemption of the GWU’s emphyteusis, which has now exposed the government to serious financial liabilities.

Despite the fact that these cases have all happened under the watch of the Prime Minister, who is also the minister responsible for the Lands Department, does not feature in the NAO report. Why not? Such an important political detail cum fact ignored!

The Prime Minister is the constant political variable throughout these issues of corruption but, more importantly, I would have expected the Prime Minister, as the minister directly responsible for lands, to have signed the Deed of Expropriation and not the Parliamentary Secretary.

The Prime Minister is accusing the Opposition of scandals in the Lands Department that occurred before 2013. He promised to expose them. I welcome such a pledge. But one thing the Prime Minister needs definitely to explain is why he has not been signing the expropriation deeds for under his administration, these deeds started to be signed by a parliamentary secretary.

priation is covered by Chapter 88 of Maltese Law. This Chapter specifically states that in case of expropriation, it is the Minister responsible for the Lands Departments or GPD who has to sign the deed and not a parliamentary secretary. Was the Office of the Prime Minister breaking the law by allowing a parliamentary secretary to sign such deeds? Am I right in saying that under the previous NP administration, these deeds were always signed by the minister and never by any parliamentary secretary? Dr Jason Azzopardi served as Parliamentary Secretary with responsibility for the Lands Department before being promoted to a minister. When Azzopardi was Parliamentary Secretary for the Lands Department, the minister responsible for Lands was Tonio Fenech. Ironically, the Labour media is at the moment in a spin mode, depicting Fenech as a sort of corrupt minister, but I am sure that when Fenech was at the helm of this ministry, procedure was correctly followed and it was he and not his parliamentary secretary that signed the expropriation deeds.

Therefore the obvious question is if Dr. Falzon, who happens to be a lawyer, was not the Minister for the Lands, why did he sign this deal? Why was the Prime Minister, as Minister responsible also for Lands, not asked to sign this expropriation deed? Was he refusing to do so? If yes, why?

If the government really wanted to nullify this deed, it should not go to Court but to Parliament. The truth is that the expropriation did not follow the correct channels. As the proper procedure was not followed, will the Principal Permanent Secretary tender his resignation? He is also in this chain of command, as he happens to be the Permanent Secretary directly responsible for the Lands Department. Why are such crucial facts missing in the NAO report?

The truth is that those responsible for this series of scandals are not the workers or Directors of the GDP but higher up individuals who cunningly enough did not leave any trace of their malicious wrongdoings. Members of the civil service were named. But as Dr. Simon Busuttil has rightly stated, the real culprits should be searched at the Auberge of Castile. 

Yet, the Prime Minister and his staff were not the only persons exonerated or covertly defended in this NAO report. There is another individual, whose name was mentioned as part of this scandal in the media but does not feature in this report. I am specifically referring here to the architect, Joseph Spiteri who was responsible for the estimates of the property that Gaffarena sold to the government and for most of the properties that Gaffarena got as part of this expropriation deal. Thanks to these transactions, Gaffarena got approximately four times the price of the original sale.

Thus, I agree in part with the disgraced parliamentary secretary Michael Falzon that there are serious problems with the NAO report. I would have expected to read in this report about architect Spiteri’s behaviour. But there was nothing mentioned. Thus, my question would be, is there a relationship between the lack of such information and the fact that Spiteri was one of architects whose services were sought in the past by this institution? At least, I skimmed through the report and could not find any disclaimer or clarification stating the obvious meaning that architect Spiteri used to serve as one of NAO’s consultants. Does his position constitute a conflict of interest with the way NAO investigated the case? By not stating this fact, did the NAO avoid opening a can of worms? In my opinion, this fact should have been stated from the onset of the report. The fact that it was not stated constitutes in my opinion a serious breach of trust.

I would have had no problem had NAO   declared this fact. But in failing to do so it was definitely not ethically correct and for this reason, I think that Falzon has a legitimate right to state that the gentlemen were politically motivated. Unlike what Falzon declared, their motivation was not to support the Nationalist Party, but to exonerate the Prime Minister and in the process they sought to defend an architect who has been rendering golden services to the NAO. I hope that this is not the case of Inħokk dahrek u ħokkli tiegħi or scratch my back and I will scratch yours!