An audit review board has recommended that the Auditor General should investigate allegations of impropriety made against Permanent Secretary Rita Schembri.
The board also recommended the investigation should be concluded within a three-week period
The Internal Audits Review Board (IAIB), of which Ms Schembri was a member, had been tasked with reviewing allegations made by businessman Phillip Rizzo that she used her office at the Government’s internal audit bureau (IAID) to discuss a bid for the Casino di Venezia.
The board interviewed Ms Schembri and reviewed the allegations, which were carried in Malta Today, along with other evidence.
However, given it is unable to summon witnesses or ask them to release statements under oath, the board recommended to the Prime Minister that the matter should be investigated by the Auditor General.
The board also recommended that in the interests of justice, the investigation should be concluded within a three-week period.
Ms Schembri, who heads the IAID, is also a member of the supervisory board at the EU’s anti-fraud agency, OLAF, whose investigation into a bribe request allegedly made by Maltese businessman Silvio Zammit led John Dalli to resign as European Commissioner.
Ms Schembri came under the spotlight after Mr Dalli questioned her role in the OLAF investigation – she served as a coordinator for the agency for the Maltese part of the probe – as she was also a member of the OLAF’s supervisory committee.
Following the publication of the OLAF report, she faced allegations of impropriety from both Mr Rizzo and separately from Joseph Borg, of Swieqi, who on Saturday was charged with attempting to blackmail the IAID head through e-mail.
In that e-mail, Mr Borg is said to have told Ms Schembri he would report her to OLAF if she did not pay money she owed to two Nigerians due to breaching a lease agreement.
Ms Schembri had herself written to the Auditor General asking for him to investigate all these issues. She has taken leave from her position until this process is concluded.
During the meetings with IAIB, Ms Schembri defended herself against the allegations levelled at her by Mr Rizzo with a letter from Colin Perkins, owner of a gambling company who allegedly engaged Mr Rizzo as a consultant in a bid for the casino. The letter described her as a person of absolute probity, according to sources.
Ms Schembri admitted to having the meeting with Mr Rizzo, the sources told The Times.
But she told the board that Mr Perkins, a friend of hers and her husband, had simply asked her to assess whether Mr Rizzo was a reliable person. She insisted she was not acting as a consultant.
She said that at the time she had been carrying out a review of Inspire, the disability NGO with which Mr Rizzo is involved, and she thought of asking him over to her office at Valletta Buildings in South Street, the sources said.