Former Enemalta liaison officer Ray Ferris accepted expensive silver ornaments and demanded cash to influence a tender adjudicating board, a court heard yesterday.
This emerged from evidence given by Police Inspector Angelo Gafà at the start of the case against Mr Ferris who is accused of trading in influence, corruption and fraud.
A crystal and silver centre piece and two bonbonnières, bought from Victor Azzopardi Jewellers, were given to Mr Ferris by George Farrugia, the man who was granted a presidential pardon to give details on an oil purchasing scandal.
How Mr Ferris got the items was contested by the accused who insisted he had demanded nothing and that it was Mr Farrugia who told him to take the items and give them to members of the adjudicating board to make sure he won a massive tender.
However, Mr Farrugia told investigators that Mr Ferris had approached him and asked for “four lovely silver gifts” and for a further €40,000 if he won the tender.
The prosecuting officer said Mr Farrugia told the police that he had bought the items for about €2,000 each. But when police demanded the receipts, Mr Farrugia said he could not find any and assumed that he had paid using a credit card belonging to the company he co-owned with his brothers.
This was Power Plan Limited, which was bidding for the tender in question.
Mr Ferris at first denied having accepted anything but then admitted to taking the silver items from Mr Farrugia, Mr Gafà said.
He said Mr Ferris told them that between 2007 and 2008 he was called to Mr Farrugia’s former office at his brothers’ company, John’s Garage, where he was given the items.
Mr Ferris told the police he did not know quite what to do but decided to take them.
Being a regular customer at Azzopardi Jewellers, he took the items there for a valuation and decided to part exchange them for a silver plate. He also recalled having to top it up with some cash.
The sterling silver plate, made by Rebecca Emes and Edward Barnard in 1828 in London, was worth about €3,000, Police Superintendent Paul Vassallo testified.
He had questioned Victor Azzopardi about the plate and the jeweller recalled selling it to Mr Ferris, noting he had a smaller version of the same one.
Mr Azzopardi said he kept no records of the sale of the items because to do so he would need a separate store to house all such documents.
In giving an overview of the case, Mr Gafà said that Mr Farrugia, as an agent for commodity giants Trafigura and Total, was bidding to run the privatised petroleum division of Enemalta and the corporation’s subsidiary MOBC.
The winning bidder would then have the companies for some 30 years.
In 2005 the Government put the wheels in motion and in the middle of 2006, the government’s investment agency, Mimcol, drew up a list of assets of the division and of MOBC.
An expression of interest was issued and 25 entities came forward but only 16 made it to the second round. An invitation to tender was then made to these companies and 13 proceeded to the next round.
Eight of the bidders visited the data rooms, where all the information regarding the division and MOBC was presented.
By May 2008, there were four bidders, including Power Plan Ltd and Greek company Mamidakis, which submitted a tender together.
The adjudication board decided that BB Energy was best and negotiations were still ongoing due to the complexity of the tender, the officer explained.
The adjudication board was made up then Enemalta chairman Alex Tranter, Alfred Camilleri, permanent secretary at the Finance Ministry, Ivan Falzon, from the Privatisation Unit, Mario Mizzi from Mimcol and Godwin Debono, from the Office of the Prime Minister.