An internal audit by the Lands Authority has flagged how public land in Qormi put up for sale upon a request by a Tumas Group subsidiary was “undervalued”.
The audit said the land was put up for sale by tender after a request was received by Ray Fenech, through Tumas Group subsidiary Easysell Properties.
Although all public land tenders over €100,000 are supposed to be vetted by the Lands Authority’s Directorate for Internal Audits and Investigations, the report says the tender was not referred to the directorate before being published.
According to the audit report, the €209,000 valuations prepared by architect Edric Micallef “appeared low”.
The report, published as part of a series of internal audits carried out by the directorate last year, said that without the land that was put up for tender, the adjacent property owned by Easysell Properties would not be accessible.
Easysell Properties was the sole bidder for the tender.
The report said the valuations submitted by the architect did not draw proper comparisons with other properties of a similar type and value.
It said the valuation given by the architect was not the best possible value the government could have got for it, particularly given the fact that Easysell Properties needed the land to be able to develop their own site.
The report was passed on to the Lands Authority’s board “for its direction” on the tender.
A source familiar with the authority’s internal workings said having the directorate reporting to the same board it was supposed to be scrutinising significantly weakened its effectiveness.
“A proposal to have the directorate reporting to an independent institution was shot down by the government when the Lands Authority was set up. Instead, those within the directorate are Lands Authority employees who have to investigate decisions taken by the board and the CEO, then report their findings to those same people”. The directorate chief audit officer is Charlene Muscat, a former Labour Party mayor and ONE TV reporter.
Tiffany Ann Farrugia, a Labour Party councillor, also signs off on audits carried out by the directorate.