Victor Carachi has resigned as a director on the board of Malta Enterprise, despite insisting he was not present when a controversial decision to approve the Corradino factory was made.
He is the third person to confirm his resignation in the wake of the public inquiry report on the death of Jean Paul Sofia.
Speaking to Times of Malta, Carachi said the decision to approve a proposal by All Plus Ltd to build a furniture factory on government land in Corradino was taken during a meeting for which he happened to arrive late.
By the time he arrived, Carachi says, the proposal had already been discussed and approved.
“I arrived late for the meeting and the project had already been approved. This is all noted in the meeting’s minutes, which are kept by Malta Enterprise”, he said.
Carachi said he offered his resignation shortly after the publication of the inquiry report, but was only made certain that he was not present at the time when reviewing the meeting’s minutes on Thursday morning.
Despite this, Carachi says that his offer to resign still stands, describing it as “a matter of ethics”.
Carachi, the president of the General Workers’ Union, follows in the footsteps of Malta Enterprise Deputy Chair Peter Borg in tendering his resignation. Borg chaired the committee which took the decision to approve the project.
Paul Abela, president of the Chamber of SMEs, also sat on the committee and is also expected to resign.
The public inquiry board led by Justice Joseph Zammit McKeon was highly critical of Malta Enterprise's five-member investment committe.
It concluded that the committee did a poor job of scrutinising the proposal and lacked transparency in its decision-making process. Instead of questioning the proposal, it tackled it in a "superficial" manner.
Malta Enterprise approved the project in May 2019 and INDIS signed over the site to the developers in February 2020.
Two years later, on December 3, 2022, the factory collapsed while under construction, killing Jean Paul Sofia and injuring five other workers.