LESA is seeking legal advice on a tender worth €108,405 awarded to a company owned by alleged kidnapper Christian Borg, the agency confirmed on Tuesday.
When asked if the enforcement agency was still leasing vehicles from Christian Borg or any of his businesses, LESA CEO Svetlick Flores said the agency was “seeking relevant legal advice” regarding a tender awarded in 2021 to Borg’s company Princess Operations Limited.
The tender in question was issued to supply LESA with 24 cars. The only other bid was offered for €192,501.
LESA, the Local Enforcement System Agency, is a government agency responsible for enforcing laws delegated to regional authorities or local councils. It does so through its community officers, or wardens.
The LESA agreement is not the only tender to have been awarded to Princess Operations Limited.
In 2020, the Department for Contracts awarded three tenders with a combined value of almost a quarter of a million euros to the company set up by Borg in 2018.
The three contracts were worth €157,680, €50,808 and €39,420, and were issued for the leasing of 38 low-emission vehicles including motorbikes and vans.
According to the tender call, applications were assessed on "price/cost effectiveness."
Princess Holdings beat 42 other applications submitted by 13 different companies to win the three contracts, despite rival bids coming in cheaper for two of the three tender submissions.
The company was also a bidder for a lucrative €3 million deal to supply judges and magistrates with leased vehicles - a tender issued by the Court Services Agency. According to The Shift, the tender was cancelled after members of the judiciary wrote to the chief justice to complain.
Princess Operations is directed by Joseph Camenzuli, a former photographer for the Labour Party.
The company's sole shareholder is Princess Holdings Limited, a company set up in 2015 owned and managed in entirety by Borg.
Camenzuli is also the director of No Deposit Cars Malta, a car hire-purchase company based in Qormi which hit the headlines recently for privacy practises that the data commissioner described as “absolutely abnormal... not acceptable... [and] very invasive”.
In an interview with Times of Malta on Friday, manager Luke Milton defended the company’s data policy, saying “As they [the cars] are the property of the company, I believe we have the right to have tracking devices on the vehicles.”
No Deposit Cars and its parent company Princess Holdings are currently facing a legal challenge from 26 of its customers, who have asked the police to rescind their vehicle hire-purchase agreements and investigate the firms for fraud and tax evasion.
Borg's company denies the allegations and says it believes the customers are just looking for a way out of their contracts.
Correction April 5, 2023: A previous version stated that No Deposit Cars won a tender to supply the judiciary with vehicles. They were a bidder for the contract.