As the government was apologising over mistakes made after it bailed out a company holding the Café Premier lease, it has now emerged that contracts on another questionable deal were being signed.
It is over the expropriation of a Valletta property that is worth at least double the price the government has paid for it, with the seller, Mark Gaffarena, making a handsome profit of €685,000 in less than two months over just one part of the deal.
Like the Café Premier bailout, the sale of the property to the government is riddled with questions that need to be answered, which is why the Opposition has called on the Auditor General to investigate it. The government said its audit and investigations unit will also investigate.
It is not just the price at which the property has been bought that is so mind-boggling but also the reason why the government had felt it was so necessary to buy it and the way it was bought.
What we were told so far is that the government expropriated the property because it was the operational base of the Building Industry Consultative Council.
If this is the real reason, it does not make any sense because the small council can operate from any part of a government building anywhere around the island. No wonder the Opposition feels the expropriation stinks of corruption. It does.
The deal with Mr Gaffarena has been done into two instalments: the government first expropriated one quarter and then another quarter only a few weeks after Mr Gaffarena had just bought it.
For the property, the government paid at least €1.6 million in cash and land to him at various places, including a prime site in a leading street in Sliema. It never negotiated with the other owners.
The man who sold the second quarter to Mr Gaffarena is none too pleased with the outcome. On the basis of the price the government paid on expropriation, he made a raw deal.
If the government was so anxious to get hold of the property in question, why did it not negotiate the price directly with the owners? This is the question the seller of the second quarter put to this newspaper and he is right. Evidently angry, he said he would like to see “the people within the government who were part of this to be held accountable”.
The story has yet to unfold even further because, according to reports, Mr Gaffarena has already done a promise of sale agreement to buy yet another portion of the same property.
Logic dictates that the government ought to mark time now until the Auditor General concludes his work and comes out with the results of his investigation.
The Opposition has put no fewer than 18 questions to the Auditor. One of the most important is: who made the request for expropriation and who decided to purchase it bit by bit?
When the government is coming down so strongly against the former Nationalist administration for shortcomings in the concrete supplied for the building of Mater Dei Hospital, the public would expect it probe its own performance.
The manner in which some deals are being done suggest political interference and/or influence.
At least, this time round, the Prime Minister is admitting there are questions that need to be asked in connection with the Gaffarena deal.
Was it a case of insider information? If that is the case it is a criminal act.
Questions will continue being asked because the government is evidently not acting with the kind of prudence that is expected of an administration, a matter that is seriously shaking trust in the people holding key posts.