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Private detective Joe Zahra once again offered the ‘Where’s Everybody’ production house his ‘services’ as a volunteer on l-Istrina, the annual Xmas charity variety show hosted by Xarabank presenter Peppi Azzopardi.
A former consultant to the WE production team, having been an integral part of the Bondiplus team prior to his arraignment in court on grounds of a fabricated investigative report, Joe Zahra, 50, has now been a volunteer on the l-Istrina team for years.
Zahra told MaltaToday he was in fact working as a volunteer this year as well, although presenter Lou Bondì said Zahra was not back in the Where’s Everybody team. “He did come here but he was not part of it,” Bondì said. “I can’t stop him from attending.”
Volunteers at l-Istrina are usually distinguishable between casual helpers and those who are actually appointed by the production company itself.
Joe Zahra told this newspaper he had been volunteering for several years now: “I was more amazed at why you were not present at l-Istrina,” he wryly said, referring to this newspaper. This year l-Istrina managed to collect over Lm800,000 for a gamut of charity organisations, however failing to hit the one million lira mark in a repeat of the Xmas 2003 record.
Zahra’s relationship with Where’s Everybody remains unclear following his suspension from the company after being arraigned for the fabrication of an investigative report on the award of the contentious Mater Dei hospital tender for the supply of medical equipment, on behalf of Dutch tenderers Simed.
Lou Bondì said his feelings on the Joe Zahra case had already been made public referring to statements published on The Independent on Sunday, when asked about what sort of relationship he had with the investigator following the Mater Dei fallout. According to these statements, Zahra was an investigative consultant to the programme with no editorial or executive functions, and Where’s Everybody were Zahra’s clients “like hundreds of others, including ministries, government entities, businesses and private individuals. What he was arraigned for in Court has absolutely nothing to do with his work on Bondiplus.”
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