Farrugia's €2 million fuel pump business depended on MRA director's green light

Oil trader George Farrugia was commissioned by entrepreneurs to construct five petrol pump stations between 2008 and 2013, at a time when the green light for fuel pump development depended on Godwin Sant, the former director for energy regulation of the Malta Resources Authority.

Farrugia, pardoned for his role in devising a bribes system for top Enemalta officials so that he could sell oil from Trafigura and TOTSA to the state utility corporation, was not just a lubricants importer his business, first through family firm Powerplant then later through his company Aikon, was of providing fuel pump technology and infrastructure to Malta’s pump operators.

Cumulatively, the five pumping stations would have cost €2 million, leaving profits of some €300,000 for the oil trader.

Importantly, his relationship with Godwin Sant – who resigned his position in the energy ministry’s conservation policy unit since MaltaToday’s revelation that he accepted freebie UK football tickets from Trafigura at Farrugia’s behest – was crucial to the fuel pump business. Sant served as director responsible for energy policy until 2013 and was instrumental in approving the development the development of new fuel pumps by applicants.

Information collected by MaltaToday indicates that each petrol station development could rake in at least €350,000 and leave a profit of between €70,000 and €90,000 for each development.

Sant, 44, from Naxxar, was also responsible for determining and confirming that the specifications of imported oil for energy corporation Enemalta from oil companies Trafigura and Totsa, both represented by George Farrugia, were according to the strict tender specifications.

Farrugia, who operates from his office in Mosta’s Independence Avenue, still retains a key interest in the petrol station business, in spite of his implication in the wide-ranging corruption scandal at Enemalta.

Sant’s cosy, quasi-familial relationship with Farrugia meant he provided the oil trader with crucial and confidential information on energy policy and government discretion on petrol stations. They also travelled together and kept a flurry of email exchanges, with Sant always careful to sue a private Gmail account.

Farrugia had monopoly on petrol pump business

Emails seen by MaltaToday show that commercially sensitive information was exchanged between the MRA director and George Farruia, such as those on a meeting of 20 February, 2009, at the MRA energy directorate, attended by Maurizio Busuttil from the MRA, and Mark Scerri and Michael Seychell for the Malta Environment and Planning Authority.

The subject was the proposed legal notice on the control of volatile organic compound emissions, namely the storage and distribution of petrol from terminal to service stations. The proposals were earmarked for the Office of the Prime Minister but were in George Farrugia’s hands before they got there.

Farrugia offered his first petrol pump services through Powerplan, the John’s Group subsidiary that he ran as part of his brothers’ group of companies.

In time however, his brothers accused Farrugia of siphoning profits from Powerplan’s oil procurement, accusing him of defrauding them to the tune of €6 million. He later settled out of court for €1 million, and in the process, could not stop a damning cache of emails of his secret dealings with Trafigura and Tosta being presented in a court of law as evidence.

He set up his own company, Centre Point Resources Limited, to carry out business constructing petrol pump stations for entrepreneurs.

One of his legal advisers on the fuel stations business happened to be former judge Godwin Muscat Azzopardi, an individual who in the past faced probes in relation to fraud due to his association and business partnership with disbarred lawyer and convicted fraudster Patrick Spiteri.

But the intelligence passed on to George Farrugia by Godwin Sant included first drafts of sensitive legislation related to petrol pump development. Godwin Sant sent out the attachments from his Gmail account, prefaced with the wording: “…as agreed please see the attached for your better understanding of the subject.”

Farrugia lost no time at all in using the information to his benefit, so that he could run his fuel pump procurement business more effectively thanks to the inside information.

Godwin Sant’s usefulness had no bounds. He would supplement George Farrugia’s craving for sealing contracts and business deals by proposing a line of action: specifically, advising whom to contact and how to get in touch with the people who mattered.

Minutes of the meetings he gave to Farrugia gave out useful and crucial information on how the fuel dispensers would have to be upgraded, and on the incorporation of recovery of gases, upgrade of pipework and removal and re-instatement of forecourt areas.

This information was important for George Farrugia to be able to clinch the contracts to build the petrol pump stations.

The fuel stations which Farrugia developed included the JM Micallef petrol station off Mdina, the one on Attard Road leading to Rabat, the Tal-Barrani petrol station, and the Gaffarena petrol station in Qormi, which was only sanctioned to start operations recently.

Police investigations into the oil scandal are ongoing, more recently since MaltaToday revealed the relationship between George Farrugia and Godwin Sant.

In an interview to the Malta Independent, Farrugia claimed that his commitment to tell the truth was not relevant when it came to other cases of alleged impropriety and possible trading of influence of civil servants.

Police are at pains at establishing a money trail between Farrugia and his government informants: it is standard that bribes are affected in cash payments, not by traceable methods like bank cheque.

Sant, Farrugia and Enemalta senior officer Emmanuel Mizzi remain on police bail since the publication of emails in MaltaToday on the relationship between insiders and the oil trader.