A firm implicated in a “passport kickbacks” scheme ran payroll for the government agency responsible for regulating passport sales to rich foreigners, documents show.
The now-defunct Nexia BT was contracted to run payroll services for Identity Malta, since renamed Identità, in 2014.
Two years later, the audit and advisory firm found itself at the heart of a corruption scandal involving ex-government officials Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi.
But Nexia BT had its contract for payroll services renewed in 2018 by Identity Malta, one year after its managing partner Brian Tonna was implicated in a passport kickback scheme with Schembri.
Tonna allegedly passed on a €100,000 kickback to Schembri from the sale of three Maltese passports to three wealthy Russians.
The pair, who deny wrongdoing, have since been charged with money laundering and corruption.
Although the kickback claims were publicly known in 2017, Identity Malta’s then-CEO Anton Sevasta still signed off on a renewal of the payroll contract in May 2018.
At that stage, the running of the passports scheme had been hived off to another agency.
Sevasta now heads the Asset Recovery Bureau, an agency responsible for freezing and seizing criminal assets.
In response to a parliamentary question by PN MP Karol Aquilina, Home Affairs Minister Byron Camilleri said the payroll contract between Nexia BT and Identity Malta expired in 2019.
In 2020, Nexia BT and its parent company, BT International, had its licence to sell passports to wealthy foreigners suspended.
The PQ also revealed how Nexia BT provided “specialised consultancy and advisory services” for the setting up of Identity Malta in 2013.
Nexia BT went on to receive millions of euros in contracts during the heyday of ex-prime minister Joseph Muscat’s government. Nexia BT was instrumental in setting up secretive offshore structures in Panama for Schembri and Mizzi.
The people behind Nexia have also been linked to major government projects that have since been marred in corruption.
Tonna sat on one of the selection committees that picked Electrogas as the preferred bidder to build a new power station when Labour first shot back to power a decade ago.
Schembri and Mizzi were banned from travelling to the United States in 2021 due to their involvement in “significant corruption” in the Electrogas contract award process.
Tonna’s right-hand man, Karl Cini, similarly sat on the selection committee that picked Vitals Global Healthcare as the top people to run three public hospitals in Malta.
The hospitals deal, which was terminated on fraud grounds in February, is also the subject of a separate magisterial inquiry.