Café Premier shareholder was PN donor, denies pre-electoral deal

Businessman Mario Camilleri, one of the owners of Cities Entertainment – the company paid €4.2 million by the State to relinquish its 65-year emphytheusis on the Café Premier in Valletta – has denied having donated any money to the Labour Party, saying instead that he had been a PN donor.

In comments to The Times, Camilleri denied that the bailout of Cities Entertainment, whose rescission its lease in court was spared by the Laboru administration, was a pre-electoral deal.

“I never gave or was asked to give a penny to the Labour Party, either as Mario Camilleri or through my family companies,” he said.

Camilleri said he had donated the sum of €1,000 to then prime minister Lawrence Gonzi and secretary-general Paul Borg Olivier in the run-up to the 2013 election and €1,000 to MEP candidate Francis Zammit Dimech in the last election.

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Camilleri is in the eye of the storm after he claimed a €210,000 ‘commission’ for himself in the €4.2 million the government gave to Cities Entertainment. The money was used to pay off rental arrears, taxes and outstanding VAT, energy bills, but also €2.5 million in bank loans.

He insists the  money was to pay a shareholder’s loan due to him and that the Cities Entertainment board resolution showing it as a 5% commission was presented to him by his partner Neville Curmi just before they signed the government contract. He has denied sharing the commission with anybody.

Camilleri said he had approached the previous administration with a similar offer to buy back the property but then tourism minister Mario de Marco had replied that it was too close to the election to conduct such a deal.

He even said that it was his partner, Neville Curmi’s “alleged wariness of Dr Muscat that [I] decided to initiate negotiations with the Labour government.”

Camilleri kept Curmi in the dark over his negotiations during the summer of 2013, with the OPM’s advisor John Sciberras, the former director of the Government Property Division until 2007.

MaltaToday can also confirm that Camilleri did not inform his lawyer, Stefano Filletti, who at the time was a legal consultant to the Government Property Department, of his negotiations.

Camilleri said he met Muscat three times before the election, but said that Café Premier was never discussed. Muscat has admitted meeting Camilleri twice.

The encounters were short meetings concerning his role as a Maltco shareholder. Another meeting was during a wedding.

He discussed the sale of the Café Premier lease in a meeting with the Prime Minister, but denied even knowing who his chief of staff, Keith Schemrbi, was.

He reiterated comments he had given to MaltaToday about the tough negotiating role that architect John Sciberras played in bringing his demands for a €5.3 million offer, down to €4.2 million.