My visit to Malta Enterprise’s €3.87 million office…

A New Year's Eve party I witnessed at the Malta Enteprise new temporary offices is being denied by ME. My allegation raises questions of whether a public building was used for a non-governmental function. So having been invited to tour the new Malta Enterprise offices in Gwardamangia, I entered and looked inside every room and every corner of the building, except one office - the one belonging to Malta Enterprise chief executive Alan Camilleri.

As rain poured heavily on Wednesday morning, I made my way to the former general hospital in Gwardamangia. Once past the main gate, I was greeted with a sorry image. Most of the buildings of the once St Luke's Hospital, built in the 1930s, are in a clear state of abandonment. The first sight as I walk in is a myriad of broken green shutters and glass panes.

Making my way through the car park, I am suddenly standing in front of a modern building with huge glass windows and sliding doors quite like steel cages. The building stands out, like an oasis in the midst of a desert. It's the new Malta Enterprise premises, and I have been invited to visit the building, estimated at €3.87 million, and housed within the former Institute for Health Care.

The invitation came after an article I wrote about what happened on New Year's Eve. I was an eyewitness to an activity going on at the top floor of the new ME offices. From my standpoint opposite the building, at the Ta' Xbiex yacht marina, the top floor was visibly lit and persons could be seen inside. The lights were on until the early hours of New Year's Day and I thought it was very improbable that someone was working on New Year's Eve. Normally people celebrate the end of a year and the start of a new one by partying and gathering with family and friends.

ME has denied that a party took place in its premises and also denied the existence of an apartment on the top floors. Subsequently, the corporation invited me to tour the building, an invitation I gladly accepted.

As I entered the lavish building, ME's head of communications Robert Farrugia gave me a tour around the former nursing school which has been converted into a plush workplace for around 160 employees.

I was told that after moving offices from the San Gwann Industrial estate a few months ago, the corporation wanted to ensure that the offices are welcoming and suitable to hold meetings with foreign and local investors. However, the design and features make it more than suitable, and one gets a sense that the corporation went over the top when this is a temporary office that will move again in three years' time to the Corporate Village in Mriehel.

The dark and narrow corridors on the upper floors heavily contrast with the bright and open ground floor. I was shown every corner of the premises, including the conference hall, the various offices in different departments and the meeting rooms on each floor. I was also asked - almost pestered - about whether I wanted to access the roof where a turret holds some generators.

As I walked around the premises I was trying to locate the room or rooms which were lit on New Year's Eve. It turned out that the light I had seen was coming from the boardroom on the fourth floor of the building - the topmost floor.

My hosts explained that the light I saw on 31 December might have been triggered by the intelligent system used which switches on the lights as soon as sensors are triggered by movement. The lights are then automatically switched off after a few minutes if the sensors do not detect more movement. I was told that the sensors might have been triggered by the security officer on duty who might have checked out if everything was fine in the boardroom.

The main boardroom is preceded by a smaller conference room with a big table and conference call facilities. The main room consists of a boardroom table and a couple of couches facing the windows. The boardroom has a splendid view of the Ta' Xbiex marina and Masamxett Harbour.

The back wall of the room is covered with grey doors which at first sight look like storage cabinets.

However after asking what is behind a little door at the far end of the room, I was told that the door leads to the CEO's office, Alan Camilleri. Strangely enough, neither was I taken inside the office, nor was I asked whether I would have liked to enter.

As I walked back to the door from which I entered the boardroom, I was suddenly invited to pass through a corridor which appeared behind one of the grey doors covering the wall. It felt like going through a maze of secret corridors. However, I was reassured that it is absolutely normal and the design of the offices ensured that space was maximised.

As the lift took us back down to the ground floor I wondered why the chairman's office was the only place I did not enter or look into. As I probed my hosts about this, I was told that the chairman's office is very small, even smaller than his secretary's office. I said my goodbyes to my hosts, feeling like their efforts to convince me that no party took place and no apartment exists on the top floor had done nothing to change my mind.

Whatever exists behind the chairman's closed office is a mystery for those who speculate over the allegedly lavish office Alan Camilleri has hived for himself as part of his €3.87 million renovation. Unless another invitation is issued to me, of course.