Enemalta’s former petroleum head placed under bill of indictment

Magistrate Anthony Vella ruled this afternoon that there was enough prima facie evidence for Alfred Mallia, 68, Qormi, to be placed under a bill of indictment and face trial by jury.

Mallia, the former head of the Enemalta Petroleum Division, is accused of receiving kickbacks from George Farrugia, the oil trader who was representative for oil giants Total and Trafigura.

Farrugia - who has received a presidential pardon to turn State's evidence - identified Mallia as the man who had requested the commissions after an agreement for oil storage was reached between Total and Enemalta.

Inspector Angelo Gafà who led the investigation, told a Court last week that Farrugia explained the whole scheme of kickbacks, which eventually also included the former Enemalta financial chief officer Tarcisio Mifsud.

Farrugia said that Total would pay him a commission of US$0.16c for every ton of oil stored at Enemalta's facilities. He would then split the commission with Mallia, with monthly cash or cheque payments issued by Powerplan Ltd.

According to the witness, Mallia had also been paid a lump sum of US$10,000 after Enemalta used Total's bunkered supplies to circumvent industrial action at the harbor, which had prevented tankers from entering port.

Total had started to sell more and more oil to Enemalta, and Mallia was kept on Farrugia's kickback payroll, until the year 2000 when Mallia was seriously injured in a traffic accident.

The witness said that although critically injured, Mallia had sent for him, telling him to go see Tarcisio Mifsud, the then chief financial officer at Enemalta about the commissions.

According to Mallia, he used to share his part of the commissions also with Mifsud, and Farrugia used to transfer the commission to Mifsud. Tarcisio Mifsud has insistently been denying the accusation.

Enemalta's corporate services chief Anthony Vella said that Mallia worked as head of petroleum division from 1987 to 2004. His contract was terminated by then Enemalta chairman Tancred Tabone who offered him an early retirement plan.

Bonello also presented minutes of Enemalta board meetings, placing Mallia as 'attending' when matters discussing oil procurement were discussed.

The witness also said that minutes of meetings in 2001 were missing, while signatures of those present did not match the dates the meetings were held.