Accompanied by Labour officials, the media was yesterday taken on a coach tour guided by Labour leader Alfred Sant in a bid to shed light on five salient cases of alleged corruption.
In this event, dubbed by MLP’s media office as “corruption tour”, Sant confirmed to MaltaToday that if the MLP is elected to power, he would be willing to take every possible action allowed by law to chastise those PN delegates he accused of corruption throughout the current electoral campaign.
Alighting at the Rialto quarters in Cospicua, the coach stood by while Sant spoke of broken PN promises on the regeneration of Dock One, as onlookers drew nearer to listen to what he was saying.
Mentioning that on four separate occasions since 1994, PN promised different types of projects in the area, Sant said: “At the end of December 2007, Gonzi’s government stated that the project at the dock would take longer than expected,” referring to a study that MEPA required in the last minute. “Another legislature has come to an end and the project at Dock One hasn’t even started,” he added.
How this part of the event figured in with the chosen theme of corruption still remains unclear.

Cottonera – Where’s the corruption?
The next stop was at the construction site of Manwel Dimech bridge in St Julian’s, where welcoming the Labour Party troupe was an eager foreman in hardhat, who after shaking hands with the leader through a wire-grid gate, listened to delivery on the state of affairs concerning the project.
Sant explained how since the announcement of reconstruction works on the bridge in April 2004, the government missed five consecutive deadlines of commencement and completion of works. “There is a whole muddle on the expense involved for this bridge,” he said. “In the 2006 budget speech, Lawrence Gonzi had said that the Manwel Dimech bridge would cost the government €3.7 million. By the next year, the expenditure had increased by €932,000,” he said, adding that up until now nobody knows exactly how much the project will end up costing.
“Another fact about this project is that the supervisory works have been appointed to the Maltese company Design and Technical Resources (DTR) and the German company KHP. The value of this contract adds up to €466,000. DTR is run by Architect Robert Sant, who in 1998 founded the company Sant and Mugliett together with Jesmond Mugliett,” he said.
Sant concluded this stop by mentioning that, from the company in partnership with Robert Sant, Minister for Roads and Urban Development Jesmond Mugliett declared a yearly income of €9,300 in the declaration of assets presented to the House of Representatives.

ADT Cobweb revived
As the Bidu Gdid branded coach drove by to the occasional cheer of supporters, the press was informed of a detour to Pietà, skipping the Crafts Village stop due to time constraints. Apologetically, Sant later told the press: “We have had to cut this event short due to the rescheduling of a Broadcasting Authority press conference.” On Monday, Sant walked out of a Broadcasting Authority press conference after Nationalist candidate Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando turned up with a temporary press card and refused to leave.
Standing at the porch of the Transport Authority (ADT) building in Pietà, Sant rekindled the “Cobweb at the ADT” issue. Referring to the exposure of conversations Transport and Communications Minister Censu Galea held with some of his canvassers, Sant said: “Censu Galea was heard declaring that there was a ‘cobweb’ within ADT… Censu Galea also declared that nobody was working properly at ADT, and that personnel were there for nothing, apart from getting Lm200,000 in wages every year.”
Criticising Galea for not taking action when it was due, Sant also reminded the press of “Summer 2006, when a whole corrupt racket on the issue of driving licences was revealed.”

Tony Abela and the OPM
Twenty minutes away from the scheduled B.A. press conference, the coach waited while Sant hit out at OPM Parliamentary Secretary Tony Abela for “using the PM’s office to develop his notarial business.”
Referring to a letter signed by Abela on an OPM letterhead in 2005, Sant said: “Tony Abela had said that the office of the Prime Minister was asked to instruct the joint office to give the go-ahead for a job that was strictly professional, concerning a private client of his.”
Referring to another incident, this time occurring in February 2006, Sant mentioned that recorded telephone conversations had revealed that in spite of Abela’s appointment as Parliamentary Secretary, he kept ensuing notarial work at his private office. “In spite of all this, Lawrence Gonzi had referred to these facts as ‘contacts with his constituents’. However, out of these supposed ‘contacts with constituents’, Tony Abela himself declared an income of Lm75,000 from the elections to date.”

Implications and Allegations
Asked by MaltaToday whether he would be willing to take action (beyond a referral to the Commissioner of the Police) against the MPs implied in corruption after his allegations, Sant said: “When you take retrospective action on such matters, one cannot take more action that what is provided by the law. We do assure however, that we will use all 100 per cent of what the law provides to take action against these people.”
Confronted with the fact that so far, there is no official evidence confirming corruption in the examples he brought forward during this campaign, MaltaToday asked Sant what he means when he uses the word corruption: “It was the PN to recognise that perceived corruption is tantamount to corruption,” he said. When asked whether when he uses the word corruption, he actually means perceived corruption, Sant immediately denied. Mentioning the cases of Jeffrey Pullicino Orlando’s land in Mistra, the illegal issue of driving licenses at ADT the Manwel Dimech Bridge controversy, Sant asked: “Don’t you call that corruption?”