News | Sunday, 15 November 2009

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Fenech avoids questions on Montebello VAT receipts

Matthew Vella
Finance Minister Tonio Fenech has refused to answer direct questions over the engagement of mega-developers JPM Brothers to carry out works on his Balzan residence, and whether he could produce VAT receipts for the services rendered to him.
“The minister will not answer any further questions made by your paper on this unfounded and fictitious story,” a spokesperson for Fenech told MaltaToday yesterday.
“Clearly your newspaper does not seem to have the intention to present facts but has for the past weeks lodged [sic] a vicious and unfounded personal campaign to damage the reputation of the minister. The minister will present the facts, receipts in court in due course and has no further comments to make on the matter.”
Tonio Fenech has in fact sued One News editor Glenn Bedingfield for libel over the coverage of MaltaToday’s story last Sunday.
The minister filed a judicial protest against MaltaToday asking for a public apology, to which this newspaper replied with a counter-protest to uphold its right to subject elected representatives to reasonable scrutiny.
On Friday evening, he appeared on TVM programme Xarabank, where he was faced by Labour MP Gino Cauchi on the circumstances concerning the engagement of JPM Brothers, and the allegation that they carried out their services in return for the minister’s intervention in the sale of their hotel.
“I have nothing to hide on my personal case… I have all the receipts for my house… if you want to see my fiscal receipts here they are, everyone can see them. Every job on my house was covered by receipts,” Fenech said on live TV.
But yesterday he refused to produce these very receipts for MaltaToday to see.

The questions the finance minister did not answer

1. Is the minister in a position to show us the VAT receipts for work carried out on his Balzan residence by JPM Brothers?

2. How did the minister pay for the works by JPM Brothers – by cash or by cheque?

3. Does the minister know of any payments that were passed on to Rainbow Turnkey Projects by JPM Brothers for the work they carried out on his Balzan residence, and whether VAT receipts were issued for these works?

4. Can the minister explain how he financed the works on his residence?

5. Why did the minister choose to engage JPM Brothers to carry out works on his Balzan residence?

6. Why did he choose to engage a firm (JPM Bros) whose business is development, not turnkey projects?

7. Does the minister deny having been aided directly or indirectly, in his electoral campaign, by JPM Brothers?

8. Journalist Godfrey Grima stated on One TV in the programme Wicc Imb Wicc, that according to his sources, you never informed the Prime Minister of your trip to watch a football match, aboard George Fenech’s jet with Fenech and Joe Gasan, and that the prime minister was made aware of this trip through an anonymous letter. What are your comments on this statement?

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