A man named by Tumas Group CEO Yorgen Fenech in leaked correspondence as a “friendly figure” within the Occupational Health and Safety Authority (OHSA) has been cleared of wrongdoing by an inquiry.

Mr Fenech, who is a shareholder and director in Electrogas, the company that built and runs the new power station, indicated that his OHSA contact could carry out an “informal” site visit and warn of spot-checks during the power station’s construction phase in 2015.

The OHSA immediately launched an independent inquiry in May after the leaked e-mails were provided to them by this paper.

Contacted last week about the outcome of the inquiry, the safety watchdog’s CEO Mark Gauci said former judge Michael Mallia found no evidence of wrongdoing by the OHSA employee.

The leaked e-mails show how the OHSA identified safety shortcomings in 2015 during the construction of the power station. 

The authority warned Electrogas that unless the shortcomings were rectified, it would have no other alternative but to stop the construction work until safety onsite was improved.

In one e-mail, Mr Fenech told former Electrogas commercial director Catherine Halpin that an unidentified minister had spoken to the OHSA to “calm the situation”.

The Sunday Times of Malta can confirm the minister in question was former Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi.

Other leaked Electrogas e-mails show Dr Mizzi passed on internal Transport Malta correspondence about the power station project to Mr Fenech.

The Electrogas e-mail, dated February 2016, shows that a Transport Malta official had pointed out internally that the regulator was not in a position to participate in any public hearings about the project because it did not have the required information and could only comment once confident all was in order.

The official said the project seemed “rather delayed”, adding more work had to be done on the safety assessment on the floating storage unit (FSU) providing LNG to the power station.

In an internal e-mail, former Transport Malta chairman and CEO James Piscopo was informed that Bumi Armada, the company contracted to operate the FSU, had no personnel on the ground yet.

The internal correspondence outlining the transport watchdog’s concerns reached Mr Fenech a day after it was sent to Mr Piscopo.

“This is what is being conveyed internally at TM,” Mr Fenech subsequently wrote in an e-mail to Catherine Halpin.

The Electrogas e-mails were leaked to journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia shortly before her death.