Galdes was meddling with Malita and 'hobnobbing' with contractors - Mizzi

Updated 6.50 with brief statement by Housing Minister Roderick Galdes

Marlene Mizzi has accused Housing Minister Roderick Galdes of meddling in Malita Investments and “hobnobbing” with contractors that the company had engaged.

“It was an honour for me to have been ‘removed’ by this minister… and the rest is history in the making,” Mizzi wrote in a fiery Facebook post on Tuesday morning.

Mizzi served as chairwoman of Malita Investments until May 2024. The company serves as a government holding company to finance large-scale development projects but is listed on the Malta Stock Exchange, with the state holding a commanding 82 per cent stake.

Marlene Mizzi's post on Tuesday.

Despite registering more than €5 million in profit in the first half of 2025, it has developed ever-growing financial trouble; work on a major housing project in Ħal Farruġ has paused due to cash flow issues, shareholders did not receive a dividend last year, and various contractors say they are owed millions by the company.

The company’s chief financial officer resigned in April, 18 months after he was first appointed, and months after its CEO also resigned. 

Last week, Galdes told Times of Malta he was "not at all" worried about the company, describing Malita as being "financially capable of resolving or managing its own financial affairs”. 

Galdes: My role was general political surveillance

On Tuesday, hours after Mizzi's statement, Galdes insisted that his role was of general political surveillance.

He said on Facebook that in every communication he had with Malita, his only interest was to reduce delay and to ensure that social housing projects moved ahead at an acceptable pace. 

"The company has its own managerial structure, and as minister, my role was always of general political surveillance, not operational intervention.  That is my duty and responsibility to the people," he wrote. 

Mizzi – a former Labour MEP who previously chaired the now-defunct state entity Sea Malta – joined Malita Investments as a director in 2021 and was made its chair one year later. She left that role in 2024 and was replaced by Johan Farrugia.

Farrugia now serves as executive chair of the company, having assumed executive powers in April upon the resignation of the company's CEO. 

On Tuesday, Mizzi said her time as Malita chair came to an end after she objected to the responsible minister, Roderick Galdes, about his behaviour. She said she was coming clean to avoid people “throwing aspersions on my professional reputation”.

“Under my watch, Malita plc was financially healthy, complying with the highest standards of corporate governance – as expected from a plc,” she said.

“My ‘removal’ by Galdes coincidentally happened a few weeks after a meeting at his office, where I stood up to him and told him that his interference in the workings of a PLC and his hobnobbing with contractors engaged by the company were not something I could accept.

“Evidently, he was not amused!” she wrote.

Times of Malta has approached Mizzi and Galdes for comment.

ADPD calls for Galdes's resignation

In a reaction, the chairperson of the ADPD political party, Sandra Gauci, called for Galdes to step down and for the reports about the goings ons in his ministry to be investigated.

"The people have a right to know what is happening and they also have a right to expect that the institutions are run responsibly and transparently," she said in a statement, adding that the minister should resign in order to re-establish seriousness and confidence in the public sector. 

She said the party was also calling for an independent investigation into the allegations made.