Police investigation on Premier shows ‘perverse priorities’ – MP

The Commissioner of Police has confirmed that the government has requested an “investigation” into an allegation that commissions might have been paid into securing the Lands Department’s acquisition of the 65-year emphyteusis on Valletta’s Café Premier.

The company that took out the governmental emphyteusis in 1998 was paid €4.2 million by the Lands Department in January 2014 to relinquish the emphyteusis, but to pay back its state-owed dues on rent and tax and private bank loans.

Speaking to MaltaToday last Sunday, Jason Azzopardi, the former minister for lands, said the government had to “come clean and publish all the workings” on the €4.2 million payment to Cities Entertainment Limited to vacate Café Premier, after choosing to stop court action against the company to pay some €200,000 in arrears.
“I limit myself to some observations, which need answers: was the government assisted by a consultant? If so, who and how much was he paid? Were there any commissions involved?” Azzopardi had asked.

He has now said the request to investigate this suggestion jars with the government’s refusal to launch police investigations into the bribery of Enemalta installers.

“This government either has a warped sense of humour or an even more perverse set of priorities,” Azzopardi said in a reaction.

The MP was incredulous at the government’s request for investigation.

“An out-of-court settlement reached in record time after the elections between the Lands Department and the operators of a non-profitable commercial enterprise enjoying government property, who owed various government departments several hundreds of thousands of euros, and who were paid 4.2 million… and when I queried in your paper whether any commissions were paid and to whom, the government asks the police to investigate.

“On the other hand the same government does not want the police to investigate and prosecute for bribery and corruption, hundreds of corrupt individuals who bribed public officials in the smart meter scandal.”

The parliamentary secretariat for lands has so far not published the workings of how it valued the emphyteusis at €4.2 million.

The government claims it reached an amicable settlement by cancelling court action and then paying off Cities Entertainment. The payment was conditional on the company repaying €307,346 in arrears to the government property division; €504,000 in capital gains tax; €192,748 in income tax and social security payments; €227,058 in VAT; €130,963 in energy bills; several thousands to creditors and company shareholders; and a further €2.5 million balance on loans taken out with Banif Bank.

Under the ‘bailout’, the government has now acquired Café Premier and its ‘Great Siege 1565’ waxworks attraction on Old Theatre and Old Treasury streets.

The government says the “amicable acquisition” was a decision to remove any hazard that the catering establishments in the area could pose to the treasures housed in the Biblioteca, above Pjazza Regina, and that it intends to construct an elevator to the Biblioteca.

The government is claiming that even if it appropriated the cafeteria forcibly – through an expropriation – to protect the historical Biblioteca, it would still have had to pay out some form of compensation.

In 2012, Cities Entertainment was paying just over €93,000 in annual ground rent to the Lands Department but also wracking up enormous debt from its operation.

In July 2013, lawyers from both Cities Entertainment and the Commissioner for Lands told the courts that an agreement had been reached to cease all court action for payment of arrears.