Watch: Lands minister backs CEO amid Fortina land valuation controversy
Bonnici says Robert Vella gave NAO what was requested
Lands Minister Owen Bonnici has backed Lands Authority CEO Robert Vella in the wake of the Fortina land valuation controversy.
Speaking to Times of Malta outside Parliament on Tuesday, Bonnici said he still had confidence in Vella, stating that Vella had told him he provided the National Audit Office (NAO) with what was requested.
“He was asked for the file and that’s what he gave the NAO. He gave the contents of the file he was asked,” Bonnici said. “In the file the report wasn’t there and that’s why it is a hidden report after all.”
The minister also pointed out that Vella had joined the authority after the Fortina deal, and had no interest in obstructing the NAO’s investigation.
The NAO report, published on Monday, found that the government had failed to secure fair value for the public land granted to Fortina.
Lino Farrugia Sacco, who chaired the authority's board of governors and who died in 2021, was found to have withheld the external valuation after telling the audit firm concerned that their €18 million figure for the land would create "problems" for him.
An independent valuation commissioned by the NAO placed the land’s value at €21 million, concluding that the state had lost €12.9 million through the deal. The Lands Authority’s own internal valuation of the land was a much lower €8.1 million.
The Auditor General said the Lands Authority had “deliberately” withheld the audit firm’s valuation report, despite having access to it. A copy of the report was requested in March 2023. By July, Vella informed the NAO that no copy could be found in the authority’s records.
“The NAO’s concern in this regard emerged on learning that the Lands Authority was aware of and had access to the audit firm’s valuation report by 3 April 2023, that is, several months before informing this office that no such record existed in its files,” the Auditor General said.
Economy Minister Silvio Schembri, who previously held the lands portfolio, also spoke to Times of Malta on Tuesday. Asked whether he had confidence in Vella, he said he had not yet gone through the full report. He also said he had first heard of the €18 million valuation a few years ago via social media.
Deputy Prime Minister Ian Borg, who was responsible for lands at the time of the deal, said he was unaware of the higher valuation. He pledged to convene a parliamentary committee “urgently” and said the concession should now be re-evaluated.
Former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said he found the National Audit Office (NAO) probe implicating former Lands Authority board of governor’s chief, Lino Farrugia Sacco, to have been written “in very bad taste”.
Asked about this sequence of events, Muscat said that had the NAO thought he had any involvement in the deal, he was sure they would have said so.