Updated March 1

Malta Enterprise’s deputy chairperson Peter Borg resigned on Wednesday after a public inquiry into the 2022 construction site collapse that killed Jean Paul Sofia slammed a committee he chaired. 

Borg confirmed to Times of Malta on Wednesday evening that he tendered his resignation earlier that day. 

He later said that he did so despite the inquiry conclusions containing "misconceptions and incorrect assumptions" about the committee he chaired.

Two other Malta Enterprise board members, lobbyist Paul Abela and unionist Victor Carachi, are also expected to resign. Both Abela and Carachi declined to comment when contacted. 

The resignations are among a flurry of personnel changes expected within various state entities in the wake of the Sofia public inquiry report. 

Occupational Health and Safety Authority chairperson David Xuereb has confirmed he will be resigning and the prime minister said two CEOs of unnamed state entities were also highlighted for criticism in the report.

Borg chaired Malta Enterprise's investment committee and also served as the state entity's deputy chairperson. Abela and Carachi also form part of that committee and sit on Malta Enterprise's board. 

Paul Attard and Victor Carachi are also expected to tender their resignations, source said.

All three sat on the committee in May 2019, when it approved a proposal by All Plus Ltd to build a furniture factory on government land in Corradino. Dana Farrugia and Frank Farrugia, who also sat on the committee at the time, no longer form part of Malta Enterprise’s governance structures.  

The investment committee, which is a subcommittee of Malta Enterprise’s main board, is responsible for approving decisions for funding and allocations to industries in projects involving up to 1,000 square metres of land.

Frank Farrugia and Dana Farrugia also sat on the 2019 Malta Enterprise committee that approved the AllPlus Ltd application.

It was singled out for criticism by the public inquiry into the death of 20-year-old Jean Paul Sofia, which said the Malta Enterprise investment committee was “amateurish” and “superficial” in the way it assessed the Corradino project that led to Sofia’s death.

Developers Kurt Buhagiar and Matthew Schembri applied to Malta Enterprise for land in the Corradino industrial estate to build a five-storey furniture factory in early 2019.

Through their company All Plus Ltd, they proposed investing €265,000 in the project – more than half of that for machinery – to build and equip the 300 square metre site.

All Plus changed its business plan in late May 2019, but that appeared to have no bearing on Malta Enterprise’s decision, as the investment committee approved the company’s proposal just three days after that change of plan.

The Sofia inquiry report concluded that the investment committee did little other than “rubber stamp” the All Plus proposal presented to it by Malta Enterprise official Kevin Camilleri.

The inquiry concluded that the proposal should never have been approved and the Borg-led investment committee green-lit it based on an assessment that was “irregular, disrespectful of legal prerequisites, incompetent and reckless”.

That assessment was led by Malta Enterprise official Kevin Camilleri, who is also expected to resign in the coming days. 

Camilleri presented the proposal to the Borg-led investment committee, which in turn did not question the low proposed value of the investment, or the applicants’ claim that they would operate the factory with just nine employees.

“The process undertaken by Malta Enterprise’s investment committee that led to public land being given away for free was not at all transparent,” the inquiry concluded. “The committee did not have the information it needed to take that decision in the knowledge that it was in the best interests of Malta’s economy.”

Malta Enterprise falls under the political responsibility of Economy Minister Silvio Schembri, who told journalists as he entered parliament on Wednesday that he was expecting a number of resignations in light of the inquiry report.

“I will provide more details in parliament,” he said.

Schembri is also politically responsible for INDIS, the state entity responsible for managing industrial estates and which effectively rubber-stamped the Malta Enterprise decision to hand over Corradino land to All Plus Ltd.

Sources told Times of Malta that the plan is to do away with the Malta Enterprise investment committee altogether. Instead, all investment requests will be assessed by Malta Enterprise’s main board of directors, which currently only assesses requests for large-scale projects.