Updated 10.11am with Peter Agius reaction
The owner of sheep farm in Għajn Riħana which was reported to the European Anti-Fraud Office over an alleged abuse of EU funds has reported MEP candidate Peter Agius to the police for lodging a false report.
Kurt Buhagiar insisted in a judicial protest against Agius that the report he filed with OLAF demanding an investigation into the alleged fraud of EU funds was a false report.
He also held Agius responsible for damages he suffered as a result of his claim.
Times of Malta visited the farm on the outskirts of Naxxar last March, days after Agius had made the claim.
There it found a fully fledged farm with close to 100 sheep and an up-and-running milk production facility.
The farm is run by Buhagiar, the developer of the Corradino site where Jean Paul Sofia was killed in a collapse in 2022.
Agius claimed that Buhagiar used €360,000 of EU funds to construct a villa despite having applied for the money to build the farm.
He alleged that Buhagiar benefitted from three injections of EU funds which were used to “construct a private residence and ancillary holdings under the guise of a goat farm”.
But a visit to the farm and an evaluation of the documents seen by Times of Malta showed that the facility was fully licensed, with all sheep registered with the Veterinary Department and an approved Dairy Products Establishment registration.
Buhagiar confirmed that he had first applied for EU funds in February 2017 and was granted almost €62,050 in EU funds for the restoration of rubble walls around his parcel of land.
He paid the remaining 20 per cent of the cost of the project.
This application was approved in May 2018. In September 2019, he again applied for EU funds to cover the expenses related to the construction of the sheep farm. This was approved at the end of March 2020, and he received 50 per cent in EU funding, amounting to €150,000, with the remainder being private funding.
The construction phase of the project was completed in March 2022. A few months later, in September, he filed the final application for funds to part-finance the purchase of modern equipment and machinery at the sheep farm.
This application was approved in January last year and the equipment was purchased by September. He received 50 per cent in EU funds, amounting to just over €146,600.
He said the Agriculture and Rural Payments Agency and the EU Funds Managing Authority visited the premises several times to check that what had been constructed and the equipment tallied with the approved plans.
In his judicial protest against Agius, Buhagiar said that OLAF visited his farm to investigate the claims made by Agius and saw with their own eyes that his claims were nothing more than a false report.
Referring to the Times of Malta interview and the opportunity Agius was given to comment following the visit to the facility, Buhagiar said that instead of acknowledging he was wrong and apologising, Agius dug his heels deeper.
While holding Agius responsible for damages suffered as a result of his claims, Buhagiar called on the police to investigate Agius for filing a false report. Lawyer Arthur Azzopardi signed the protest.
Agius: Labour plot to gag me
In a reaction, Agius said this was a plot between the Labour Party and the developer who had taken EU funds three times for an ODZ farm and was now trying to gag him.
He said he had gone to OLAF to seek an investigation into how this developer was able to get EU funds three times while genuine farmers were left with nothing.
This, he observed, was the same developer behind the property that collapsed two years ago, killing Jean-Paul Sofia.
Agius said fighting corruption was one of his priorities and nothing would stop him from ensuring that taxpayer funds were used properly.