A Public Accounts Committee discussion on a pre-2013 land expropriation case at times became a mudslinging match with Opposition MPs saying no secret Panama companies were involved.

The House Committee met on Wednesday to discuss a National Audit Office report into a controversial land expropriation deal by the previous Nationalist administration.

According to the report, on March 5, 2013, just days before a general election, the Land Department had signed a contract transferring two properties (one in Swieqi, the other in San Ġwann) worth €4.3 million jointly as payment for land expropriated at Fekruna Bay, Xemxija.

The Fekruna land was valued at €5 million and the difference in favour of Fekruna Ltd, €700,000, was offset against amounts due to the government by the company in lieu of capital gains tax and duty on documents.

The report found that taxpayers had lost more than €1 million through the deal.

Government MP Robert Abela said the deal had happened under the watch of then parliamentary secretary Jason Azzopardi, wondering how the Nationalist MP could have been involved in the deal and now had the cheek to speak the way he did. He asked what had happened to the funds taxpayers had lost in the deal. Was it possible that nobody knew where the money had gone, he wondered.

Opposition MP Chris Said quipped that Dr Azzopardi had certainly not opened any Panama offshore companies, referring to the Panama Papers scandal that has haunted the Labour administration since 2016.

The sitting heard that the Auditor General had found a lack of documentation on the Fekruna Bay expropriation, which it described as a “serious shortcoming”.

No records of negotiations with the company were retained, no minutes of meetings kept and no documentation of correspondence made available.

This detracted from the principles of good governance, accountability and transparency, the Audit Office pointed out.

The discussion continues next Wednesday.