Peter Agius reports Sofia developer to OLAF over 'misuse' of EU funds

Nationalist MEP candidate Peter Agius has filed a report with the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) over what he claims is EU funding fraud by Sofia site developer Kurt Buhagiar.

“We must fight corruption in new methods, using new tools at our disposal. Today I filed an OLAF report on the alleged fraud of €360,000 in EU funding for a supposed goat farm by Kurt Buhagiar used to construct a villa instead,” he said on Facebook on Tuesday.

Kurt Buhajar is the developer behind the site where Jean Paul Sofia tragically died in a building collapse in December 2022.

Agius said the Jean Paul Sofia public inquiry clearly states the developer, Kurt Buhagiar, clearly benefitted, illicitly, from EU funding.

The PN MEP candidate said further investigation by him led him to unveil how Buhagiar has “effectively benefitted on three separate occasions” from EU funding, getting the maximum allowable limit on every application in 2017, 2019 and 2022, netting over €360,000 in the process.

“EU funds from three separate calls in measure 4.1 and 4.4 under the European Agricultural funds managed by the Malta Managing Authority were used to allegedly construct a private residence and ancillary holdings under the guise of a goat farm as declared in three applications,” he said. “The first application was for the construction of a goat farm in Naxxar in 2017 netting €150,000, then for an upgrade netting €146,000 in 2019 and then for the construction of rubble walls around the property for which the beneficiary netted another €62,000.”

“While this developer with good contacts with INDIS, Planning Authority and elsewhere got the maximum funding in three separate occasions, there are hundreds of applicants who never manage to benefit from any EU funding over years of trying in vain.” the MEP candidate said.

Agius said he will not allow anyone to put Malta’s EU funding in peril “through fraud”.

“This is why I reported this case to the European Anti-Fraud Office for it to investigate the case and come to the bottom of it. The Sofia inquiry conclusions together with media reports should have been enough for Maltese authorities to investigate. Given that we heard nothing coming from local authorities, I decided to put the case in the lap of the competent authority at the European level,” he said. “Given that local paths are not leading us to justice, we must also consider new ways of fighting corruption in Malta through recourse to other venues.”