Lands Minister Jason Azzopardi. Photo: Darrin Zammit Lupi

Jason Azzopardi employed Elbros Construction to carry out works on his constituency office in Paola while dealing with the same company as Lands Minister on a lease agreement regarding the MCP car park in Floriana.

However, Dr Azzopardi has denied a conflict of interest, saying he acted above board at every stage and only asked the company to carry out the works after a plasterer dropped out for family reasons.

Dr Azzopardi submitted all the information about the case to The Sunday Times, including copies of the invoice, cheque and receipt, after he learnt that he may come under political attack on the issue from an MP.

Saviour Ellul, the chairman of Elbros, is also the operator of the MCP car park which is currently in the process of extending a lease agreement with the Government.

The agreement has not yet been signed but questions have already been raised by Nationalist MP Jesmond Mugliett over the amounts being paid by the Government.

However, Dr Azzopardi said negotiations with MCP were concluded long before he asked the company to carry out works, for which he paid €4,471, VAT included.

“I presented the package on the MCP car park to Cabinet on March 6,” says Dr Azzopardi.

Meanwhile, the works on his office began in August and were completed a couple of weeks ago.

Dr Azzopardi’s office, which was visited by The Sunday Times, consists of three rooms, a corridor and a stairwell. Elbros was tasked with scraping off the paint to expose the limestone.

Dr Azzopardi, who was recently approved as a candidate on the fifth district, said he wanted the works done by hand, instead of by sand-blasting, due to environmental considerations.

Originally he had asked a self-employed tradesman to do the job, but the man dropped out at the last minute.

“I asked him to recommend someone else and the person he suggested was an employee of Elbros, so I called Mr Ellul and asked for a quotation, which I accepted,” says Dr Azzopardi.

Dr Azzopardi said there was no conflict in this agreement, firstly because he paid for the works in full and, secondly, because negotiations on MCP had started two years earlier.

He stressed that his ground-floor office was located in a main road of Paola through which some 12,000 cars passed every day.

“The Elbros truck was parked outside my office for weeks, for everyone to see,” he said, arguing that this proved he had nothing to hide.

Asked whether he thought the large construction company agreed to carry out the minor works because of Dr Azzopardi’s position, the minister denied this was the case.

“They do this type of work, rest assured. In fact, the workers they sent were workers who were trained for this work. I don’t think this was the first time they did this sort of job.”

However, when The Sunday Times contacted Elbros to see whether the company would carry out an almost identical job, the person responsible for quotations said:

“We only do construction jobs. You need a plasterer... someone who works individually. It doesn’t make sense for big companies to do this sort of work.”