Stivala insists he did not hire Muscat as ‘payback’ for allowing developers to break planning laws

Malta Developers Association President Michael Stivala has denied suggestions that he had employed Joseph Muscat, upon the former Prime Minister’s retirement from politics, as “payback” for allowing developers to break planning laws.

Stivala took the witness stand before Magistrate Rachel Montebello this afternoon, in the ongoing libel case he filed against independent politician Arnold Cassola. 

The libel suit was filed over a number of Facebook posts in which Cassola described Stivala as having been “gifted various illegalities” under the Muscat premiership.  One post, titled “Robert Abela: lying about Joseph Muscat,” states that “Muscat got his ‘so-called consultancies’ from Accutor and Stivala in 2020, soon after his resignation.” A subsequent Facebook post by Cassola spoke of “Joseph Muscat’s payback time… Consultant with Stivala.”

In November 2022, Stivala had confirmed employing Muscat as a consultant, just months after the latter resigned as prime minister.

Testifying this afternoon, the MDA president told the court that he had employed Muscat because a vacancy had arisen which Muscat was qualified to fill.

Cassola’s “payback time” comment implied that Muscat had allowed Stivala to commit illegalities in return for an iced bun consultancy after his term in office finished, Stivala said, before adding “in fact, it is completely untrue.”

Lawyer Vince Galea, representing Stivala, asked the witness about a photo of him posing with Muscat. “We had both attended a conference at Oxford University about implementing an ESG report in the company,” he explained, stressing that there were many other “high-level attendees” from the EU and industry.

The allegations made by Cassola were based on conjecture, Stivala testified, denying them as false. However, the allegations had to be taken seriously, he added, “because investors needed to be assured that they were false.”

Regarding Cassola’s statement about long-standing planning illegalities at a Gżira restaurant and adjacent hotel purchased by Stivala, he said that the hotel in question had not yet been demolished due to a pending court case. 

Reading from notes which he told the court he had written himself; Stivala gave a lengthy explanation about the planning process preceding a number of projects, making reference to documents which, he said, proved their legitimacy.

He denied dumping construction dust in Balluta Bay, as Cassola had alleged, telling the court that his employees had plugged a leak of dust and water into the sea. The leak had reoccurred, he said, requiring his employees to work through the night to fix it. He said the Environmental Resources Authority had fined him €2,330 for this breach.

He said that the Constitutional Court had twice favoured the site’s previous owners and ordered the government to change and review the local plans to make it into developable land. This had happened before Muscat’s tenure, he said. 

He said the works had been covered by permit 1265/2011, adding that these were issued over a site, not an individual.

“The site for the hotel is made up of three pieces of land, each of which has a separate permit…we [only] carried out the works on the parts covered by permits.”

Cassola had alleged that the construction projects he mentioned included a multi-storey ta’ Xbiex property built in 2016 on a buffer zone where high-rise buildings could not legally be built.

Stivala told the court today that the site was located on the periphery of the buffer zone and that there had not been any objections to the application.

He insisted that Muscat had been engaged after he stepped down “on the strength of his vast experience in consultancy and politics.”

It was far from a phantom job, Stivala said, telling the magistrate that Muscat could be found at his office at Stivala’s Bayview hotel in Gzira three or four times a week. “He’s almost become part of the furniture,” quipped the witness.

He accused Cassola of backtracking on his claims of corruption, which he said were based on “newspaper cuttings and posts by fake profiles,” repeating his denials about any payback, fake consultancies or kickbacks.

The case was adjourned to June.