Former Enemalta chairman Tancred Tabone received some $20,000 in cash commissions from rogue oil trader George Farrugia at a luxury hotel in Geneva, a court heard yesterday.
Money was also exchanged between the two men over lunch meetings but, in a couple of instances, Mr Farrugia paid Mr Tabone with cheques, Assistant Police Commissioner Michael Cassar testified yesterday.
Mr Tabone stands charged with fraud, bribery and money laundering in connection with the Enemalta oil procurement scandal.
Mr Cassar testified before Magistrate Claire Stafrace Zammit that the information was given to him by Mr Farrugia, who has been granted a presidential pardon to reveal the intricate web of the scandal.
In police statements, Mr Farrugia said that when Mr Tabone was chairman of Enemalta he would invite him to lunch meetings where the money was exchanged.
He referred to one particular meeting, held at the five star President Wilson Hotel in Geneva, where Mr Farrugia paid $20,000 in cash to Mr Tabone.
The last payment to Mr Tabone was handed over at the Tana del Lupo restaurant in Paceville.
Mr Farrugia told the police that money was given to Mr Tabone right up until his chairmanship ended in 2005.
He also said that, even though Mr Tabone had left the corporation, he still used to wield some power there.
Mr Farrugia declared that the directors of Intershore Fiduciary Limited, who held the directorship of Aikon Limited, did not have anything to do with the issuing of invoices to Trafigura for the commissions paid and neither did they know about his bank accounts in Switzerland where he deposited the money.
In another statement to the police, Mr Farrugia said that he was the youngest of 11 siblings and, up till 2010, was a business partner with five of them in John’s Group, which was primarily involved in the automotive industry.
His main focus was his company Powerplan Limited, through which he used to deal in oil products.
His first contact with an oil company was made in 1995 when he approached Total to start importing their products into Malta and then for them to bid to sell to Enemalta.
Mr Cassar explained that when asked by the police how he came to know Frank Sammut, who had served as Mr Tabone’s adviser, Mr Farrugia said they met through MOBC, a subsidiary company of Enemalta. Mr Sammut is also facing charges over his involvement in receiving commissions.
Mr Farrugia recalled how, during a meeting, Mr Sammut had invited him to join him for a drive and asked him for a kickback amounting to 50 US cents per metric tonne on products supplied by Total to MOBC.
Mr Farrugia accepted and they agreed how Mr Farrugia should invoice MOBC and that the commission payment would come from MOBC funds and split between them.
Mr Cassar said it was interesting to note that the invoices were numbered in descending order instead of using the usual system.
Invoices collected from MOBC amounted to a total of $200,000 between 1999 and 2003.
Phone numbers that featured on the invoices were non-existent and there were grammatical and spelling errors, Mr Cassar said.
Under cross examination, Mr Cassar confirmed that Enemalta’s chief financial officer, Tarcisio Mifsud, who also stands charged in the case, ran the oil procurement committee before Mr Tabone was chairman.
He said that the police had tried to contact Trafigura for the past month.
Another man they wanted to speak to was Tim Waters, an employee of Trafigura who Mr Sammut claimed knew about the commissions and came to an agreement with over the payments.
He confirmed that Trafigura never paid Mr Tabone directly nor did Mr Tabone ever ask Trafigura for anything.
Mr Cassar said that Trafigura almost always won the tenders issued right up until the last contract.
The case continues.