PM calls for police probe over yacht yard tenders

The Prime Minister yesterday called for a police investigation into corruption claims surrounding the privatisation of the super yachts facility at the shipyards, which were raised this week by the opposition.

The announcement by Lawrence Gonzi was made in Parliament yesterday morning and came in response to a vague question on Monday by Opposition Leader Joseph Muscat.

Dr Muscat had asked whether the Prime Minister or his Office were aware of allegations that someone had asked for money in return for favourable treatment with any governmental tendering process.

Dr Gonzi said no such claims had been made with regard to the tender negotiated with Palumbo for the privatisation of the ship repair facilities but added that he was told on Tuesday that a claim on these lines had been made to the OPM last September about the tendering process of the super yacht facilities in Marsa.

On this basis, Dr Gonzi said, he yesterday asked for the Police Commissioner to investigate the claim.

But Dr Muscat reacted by saying it was disgraceful that eight months had passed before an investigation was called. "Waiting eight months to ask the police to investigate will not help uncover the truth and does not help the investigations," Dr Muscat said.

During yesterday's sitting, Dr Gonzi said the OPM official who heard the claim, from people involved in the bids, had alerted the Finance Ministry. The ministry had investigated the claim and although their probe yielded no results, the call for tenders was cancelled.

In fact, this was the second time that the call for tenders was cancelled. The first time was in November because none of the bids was found to be satisfactory. A second call was made and new bids submitted but the process was stopped again.

In a series of statements and counter-statements that followed throughout the day, the government denied that there had been any delay in calling for an investigation, pointing out that the Prime Minister only found out about this claim on Tuesday.

It also turned the tables on Dr Muscat, saying that he should have come forward with the information earlier.

However, Labour rubbished the argument, stressing that that the Office of the Prime Minister and the Finance Ministry were privy to this information in September, as Dr Gonzi himself admitted, and chose to do nothing about it.

Moreover, Dr Muscat said the information had been brought to his attention a long time after the government was made aware of it.

Labour said the "investigation" by the Finance Ministry consisted of people being called in for a meeting at the ministry, adding that this was not the way things should be done. In fact, Dr Muscat called on Dr Gonzi to table in Parliament the results of any investigations carried out.

On this point, a Finance Ministry spokesman told The Times that Minister Tonio Fenech had spoken to the officials involved both as a group and individually in September and they all denied having made any such requests. They were willing to confirm this under oath and the oaths were tabled in Parliament yesterday.