OPM staff member present during IIP evaluation meetings

The three members of the Individual Investment Programme Evaluation Board that were questioned during today’s Public Accounts Committee, failed to identify who was the person that actually drafted the report later presented to the government.

PAC chairman Tonio Fenech asked the board members of the committee to identify who the fourth person was during meetings and who wrote the final report.

Prof. Joe Bannister, the chairman of the Malta Financial Services Authority, explained that there was a person who attended the meetings, allegedly working at the Office of the Prime Minister. Bannister said this person never intervened, but took some notes.

He added that the MFSA never engaged in international marketing or in adverts that appeared on international media. He explained his job was to select the best person to promote the IIP programme.

Dr Mario Vella, executive chairman of Malta Enterprise, said he was contacted for the role from the Ministry of Justice.

Tonio Fenech asked him who exactly formulated the final report for the selection of the IIP concessionaire, for which Vella didn’t know how to answer. Fenech said that nobody seemed to be able to clearly indicate who was the secretary that formulated the report. “It is as if the report was written by no one, that it came out of thin air,” Fenech said.

The committee heard how this Evaluation Board had no chairman but were presented with a document highlighting the specific criteria.

At the beginning of today’s session, Fenech said that justice minister Owen Bonnici should not be present during the sittings when questioning the IIP evaluation board, because of the conflict of interest in hearing witnesses that had been employed by his own ministry.

Bonnici left the room with a condition that as from the next committee meeting, he is substituted by a representative of the government.

The PAC members later questioned members from the appeals board. Dr Reno Borg said that the coordinator of the board was Mark Farrugia, an employee at the Office of the Prime Minister. He said that this coordinator took care of ‘logistics’. The meetings sometimes lasted all day long.  

Adrian Said, a member of the committee, said that the report was written by all of the members, but cannot recall who drafted the final version.