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Julian Manduca
Minister Austin Gatt told MaltaToday the alleged welfare abuse by the man the government is offering Fort Chambray has “no relevance to the development.”
Minister Gatt was replying to questions as to whether he was going to take into considerations allegations made in court in relation to welfare abuse by the man chosen to take over the Fort Chambray development, Gozitan lawyer Michael Caruana, known as ‘il-Billy.’
The allegations were made by former police inspector Ivan Portelli who was giving evidence in a court case brought by the same Portelli against the Prime Minister for unfair dismissal from the police force.
The allegations were reported in MaltaToday 24 October, but brought no official reaction from any quarter.
Portelli told the court how former police commissioner George Grech had stopped him from investigating Caruana for cheating on welfare benefits. Portelli said he had found enough evidence to charge Caruana in court and did so, but that “When George Grech heard about this he sent for me and ordered me to stop the process against Michael Caruana immediately.”
Minister Gatt would also not reply to questions put to him by MaltaToday about whether the government’s deal with the family of Gozitan lawyer Dr Michael Caruana on Fort Chambray would result in speculation and millions of liri gain for the Caruana family.
The agreement, which still has to be approved by Parliament, has come in for some criticism in the media with both MaltaToday and columnist Joe Grima, a former tourism minister, suggesting that the agreement is too generous with the Caruanas.
The deal reached with Michael Caruana and his family by minister Gatt was heralded with fanfare by the minister who clearly solved what was looking like an impossible situation because of the unwillingness of former Chambray owner Roberto Memmo to push the project ahead. For many years the project remained stalled to the frustration of Memmo’s Maltese partners.
One major change that has caused eyebrows to rise is the fact that Caruana is not being obliged to build a hotel or tourism complex, a cornerstone of the previous agreement with Memmo. Removing the tourism element from the project will make it easier for the Caruana’s to make money and other businessmen are asking why they were not offered a similar deal.
On his part Dr Caruana wished not to comment when asked questions by MaltaToday, although he said he was undecided as to whether to include a tourism element in the project.
Joe Grima has calculated that the Caruana family stands to sell the property for Lm112 million and make a Lm 92 million profit when it finally sells all the apartments, and even if that sum may be on the high side, the Caruana’s are being presented with a prime site on which to ‘speculate.’ Asked whether the calculations made by Joe Grima and MaltaToday were reasonable Caruana would only reply: “Those were your calculations.”
When MaltaToday asked Gatt whether he felt the deal would lead to the Caruanas making a packet with a speculative development, the minister failed to reply and referred this newspaper to a press release issued in July of this year championing the deal just struck. In that press release the minister had explained how difficult it had been to reach a deal on what had often looked like a lost cause.
Gatt did however answer a question that was gaining some currency on Gozo, that the Caruana’s would be setting off a large debt owned to them by the government to purchase the development. Asked if this was true, Gatt said: “I can confirm that the Government will be receiving the amount in cash and this will not be set off anything else.”
Caruana is a well-known Gozitan businessman and together with his brothers runs a long established firm, Joseph Caruana Company Limited. The company has long been involved in general trading activities both in Malta and in Gozo. Dr Caruana is also the President of the Gozo Business Chamber.
As president of the chamber Caruana is pushing for the construction of an airstrip in Gozo, an airstrip which could be beneficial to his interests at Chambray should he decide to include a tourism element in his project.
The Gozo airstrip was a hot issue in the nineties with Gozitans and environmentalists protesting and when Labour was elected in 1996, one of its first moves was to withdraw the application citing environmental reasons.
One of the main proponents of the airstrip then was Joseph N. Tabone, the former Air Malta chairman, who also had an interest in Chambray. The idea of an airstrip has now come to the fore again with Caruana and Gozo Tourism Authority Secretary Joe Muscat both arguing in its favour.
Parliament is expected to begin discussing the deal the government reached with Caruana for Chambray within the coming weeks.
Commenting on remarks made by Gozo Business Chamber president Dr Michael Caruana regarding the building of an airstrip in Gozo, Prime Minister Dr Lawrence Gonzi said the government needed to hear more from Gozitan people regarding their feelings on the subject.
He said that there had been a time when people in Gozo were mostly against the project. But now noted that representatives of two important Gozitan associations are calling on the government to build an airstrip.
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