Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee grills the former director of Government Estate Management Division over expropriation deal
A central figure in the Old Mint Street expropriation scandal yesterday described the “pressure” he experienced during the contentious deal.
Speaking during a grilling by the Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee, Carmel Camilleri, the former director of the Government Estate Management Division, said he was pushed to get the expropriation process for the property completed “quickly”.
The PAC is looking into the contentious expropriation following an investigative report by the Auditor General which revealed collusion between government authorities and businessman Marco Gaffarena.
The case centres on the way the government expropriated Mr Gaffarena’s share of the property and the way he was compensated financially and with other properties.
The Auditor General found numerous irregularities, and Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has since launched court proceedings to annul the deal.
I had two choices, either to be silent and give the impression that the report’s contents were true, or to come out in the open and correct them
Yesterday’s session was held after Mr Camilleri had revealed, through an affidavit, how a former member of former planning parliamentary secretary Michael Falzon’s secretariat pressured him into rushing the process.
Mr Camilleri said the former member of Dr Falzon’s secretariat, Clint Scerri, had been introduced to him as the link between the division and Dr Falzon’s secretariat. This, to him, meant Mr Scerri spoke for the ministry.
Mr Camilleri also told the committee that when he had read the NAO report, he found it shocking.
“I had two choices, either to be silent and give the impression that the report’s contents were true, or to come out in the open and correct them,” Mr Camilleri said.
He insisted he was never in collusion, as the report claimed, with anyone involved in the case. Mr Scerri, he said, had spoken to him more frequently and urgently while he was processing Mr Gaffarena’s case than ever before.
He recalled how Mr Scerri had on more than one occasion gone to his office with Mr Gaffarena in person to check on the progress.
Replying to questions by Justice Minister Owen Bonnici, Mr Camilleri said it was not unusual for people involved in expropriation to be assisted by civil servants, but it was unusual for Mr Scerri to have turned up with Mr Gaffarena to actually request the start of proceedings in the first place.
In reply to questions by committee chairman Tonio Fenech, Mr Camilleri said Mr Gaffarena’s file had been handled with “haste”.
Architects were pressed to produce their valuations and at one point an architect, who did not have his own transport, was driven to the site by Mr Gaffarena himself.
Mr Camilleri had also learned that Mr Scerri had been pressing draughtsmen and architects to provide valuations on properties related to the deal at an expedited rate.
The NAO report had also highlighted how confidential information had been handed over to Mr Gaffarena during the valuation process.
Mr Camilleri, however, insisted he had never handed any of the information to Mr Gaffarena since that was classified.
At this point, an NAO official, Keith Mercieca, told the committee that Mr Gaffarena had known of the valuations. This could only have been the result of “inappropriate and collusive action”. Dr Falzon will be questioned when the committee next meets.