Former Malta Tourism Authority CEO Paul Bugeja on Wednesday said he was not involved in negotiations concerning a controversial €4.5 million contract handed to business aviation company VistaJet.

Bugeja said that while he could not recall if he had seen the contract before it had been signed, talks with VistaJet had been conducted by tourism ministry officials.

The former CEO was testifying before the Public Accounts Committee, which is probing this three-year deal which covered the period between 2016 and 2018.

Opposition MPs have cried foul over this agreement, saying there was little evidence to justify the €4.5m expenditure.

In 2017 Times of Malta had revealed that MTA board members were not aware of the deal.

This was also confirmed by Bugeja, who said that he acted in line with the practice of his predecessors.

“The practice at the MTA is not to inform the board, as it is different from a normal company board,” he pointed out.

MTA made payments but signatory was MML

Former MTA CEO Paul Bugeja

During the sitting the former MTA CEO was grilled by Opposition MPs Beppe Fenech Adami and Chris Said. Both sought to clarify what verifications were made prior to authorising the payments to Vista Jet. 

Bugeja said he relied on checks made by the head of strategic development at MTA, Leslie Vella, and the ministry’s aviation consultant Josephine Farrugia.

However, when Farrugia testified in the previous meeting, she said she had authorised the first two payments on the instructions of Bugeja.

Questions were also raised as to why the MTA made the payments even though the contract had been signed by Malta Marketing Limited, which was part of State investment corporation MIMCOL. Bugeja justified the practice, saying he was following the procedure that had been established since 2004 when MML had been formed.

Talks conducted by ministry officials

The former MTA chief also testified that he had no direct involvement in the negotiation talks with VistaJet, as these were conducted by tourism ministry officials whom he did not mention by name. He noted the contract had been drafted by the section headed by Vella.

“I was not directly involved in negotiations,” he insisted.

€250 payment per click

Another issue raised in the meeting concerned a series of payments covering internet traffic to the MTA’s website, including a €17,500 invoice for 70 “clicks”.

It transpired that a rate of €250 was set every time a passenger visited the MTA website using electronic tablets provided onboard VistaJet planes.  

The €250-per-click rate was not established in the contract itself, Bugeja said, but determined in due course.

Mistakes in the contract were ‘venial’

As for the contract itself, the former MTA chief acknowledged there was a mistake in the form of a misprint. The numbering of certain clauses in the original draft did not tally with the final version and as a result some links were wrong, he pointed out.

“This was not mortal sin, but a venial one” Bugeja insisted.

€50,000 press conference

Bugeja confirmed that a payment of €50,000 had been made to cover the costs of a news conference at the Skyparks offices in Luqa for which he was not present.

He justified the expense, saying the bill included the costs of bringing over a journalist from global media company Forbes to cover the event. However, he said he could not tell if Forbes had published anything about the event.