A former tourism ministry consultant who authorised €352,000 in payments to VistaJet on Wednesday insisted she was following the instructions of the Malta Tourism Authority chief, who asked for more funds from the government.
However Opposition MPs disagreed, insisting her authorisation was for two Vista Jet invoices to be paid and not for an MTA budget increase.
Former tourism ministry aviation consultant Josephine Farrugia was grilled on the matter during a Public Accounts Committee meeting which is probing a controversial €4.5 million contract which the MTA awarded to VistaJet, which specialises in business jet operations.
The contract was for marketing and promotion in this specialised high-end sector between 2016 and 2018. This deal had stoked controversy after in 2017 Times of Malta revealed that MTA board members were not aware of it at all.
During the sitting, Opposition MPs including committee chair Beppe Fenech Adami insisted their intention was to establish if this three-year contract had proven to be good value for money.
Farrugia, who was an aviation consultant with the ministry between 2015 and 2017, said she had given her thumbs up when MTA CEO Paul Bugeja had sought her advice on “a joint investment” with Vista Jet.
She said her advice was limited to her view on whether this was a reputable business jet company and not on the terms of the contract, which she insisted had not been shown to her.
She said that being associated with VistaJet helped improve Malta’s reputation in business aviation, with ripple effects on the financial services industry.
During a previous meeting, it had transpired that Farrugia had authorised two payments of €150,000 and €202,000 on the strength of invoices issued by VistaJet.
Asked to justify such expenses, Farrugia insisted she was following the instructions of the MTA CEO Paul Bugeja. Bugeja needed a ministry official to seek additional funding to cover these bills, she said.
Farrugia initially said that part of these costs were in line with a contractual clause requiring a €250 payment for every website click received on the MTA website through this agreement. She later retracted the claim, as no such clause could be found in the contact.
Opposition MPs Beppe Fenech Adami and Chris Said insisted this payment authorisation did not constitute a request for a budget increase but her go-ahead for the invoice to be settled. She insisted she did not feel she had been deceived by Bugeja on the intention behind these invoices.
She said 400,000 people had used these jets since the company was set up in 2004 but noted she was not in a position to say how many of them actually visited Malta as a result of the Vista Jet marketing campaign. Farrugia pointed out that the majority of passengers who made use of these jets during the three-year agreement had been given promotional material on Malta given during the flight.
However, Said pointed out that according to VistaJet documents handed to the committee, only 10,000 people had seen this promotional material on electronic tablets provided to passengers aboard the company's flights.