Environment ministry buying most of its fuel from Gaffarena’s petrol station

Departments that fall under the remit of agriculture parliamentary secretary Roderick Galdes spent a whopping €21,300 to purchase fuel from Joe Gaffarena’s petrol station in Qormi so far this year.

A parliamentary question by shadow environment minister Marthese Portelli to Environment Minister Leo Brincat revealed that the government departments that fall under Brincat and Galdes spent a combined total of  €71,200 on fuel so far this year, out of which €21,300 was spent on fuel from J. Gaff Service Station alone.

In comparison, a total of €26,134 was spent on fuel from Gaffarena’s petrol station throughout the whole of 2014. A note at the end of the PQ indicates that all fuel bought from the J. Gaff Service Station was from departments that fall under  Roderick Galdes, not from Leo Brincat.

The Ministry’s next most-used petrol station so far this year was the J.Micallef Service Station (€13,646), followed by Carlo Cini Ltd (€8,309), Carmelo Saliba Service Station (€7,401), and St. Joseph Petrol Station (€6,746).

In 2013, all fuel from the Ministry was purchased from MSD Kordin Fuel Station at a cost of €133,112. Only €324 was spent on fuel from that particular station in 2014, and €90 so far throughout 2015.

In total, the Environment Ministry spent €369,520 over the past three years. 

In 2014, Marco Gaffarena – a shareholder in J Gaff Service Station Ltd – was granted a controversial permit for the J. Gaff service station in Qormi by the Malta Environment and Planning Authority, after it had been forcefully shut down in 2008 and again in 2009 after its owners built new structures on site illegally. 
The Gaffarena family was granted a temporary clearance to reopen its petrol station in Qormi against a €500,000 bank guarantee. 

In reaction to the controversial permit, Joe Gaffarena said that his eight children had suffered “hardship” for five years due to the station’s closure. 

The Gaffarenas not only applied to sanction illegalities on the site of the ODZ petrol station, which had already been refused by MEPA in 2011, but also applied to construct a 31-square metre food and beverage outlet, with six car washes on the same site. 

Gaffarena was awarded a permit to erect the petrol station in 2007, but subsequent additions were made without a permit. 

In January 2011, MEPA turned down the sanctioning of extension works to Gaffarena’s petrol station because the illegalities on site were resulting in the further intensification of urbanization in an outside development zone. 

Way back in 2008, MEPA had issued an enforcement notice and sealed off access to the entrance, given that Gaffarena had wilfully decided to go beyond the approved planning permission he got in 2006 for the construction of the petrol station. 
Following the issuing of the permit last year, the former parliamentary secretary for planning, Michael Farrugia had defended the decision, insisting that everyone should be given an opportunity to regularise their position, and that Gaffarena had been “promised a permit before the elections.”

But Nationalist MP and MEPA board member Ryan Callus had dismissed Farrugia’s claims, insisting that MEPA had twice turned down Gaffarena’s application under the previous administration.