Preliminary investigation by OLAF into Maltese MEPs’ expenses

The investigation was launched to also look into reports by this newspaper over claims of inflated staff salaries, as well as declarations of a €4,000 monthly allowance known as the general expenses allowance being made up by fictitious amounts and with no backing fiscal documentation

Nationalist MEP David Casa
Nationalist MEP David Casa

The European Union’s anti-fraud agency OLAF is carrying out a preliminary inquiry into expenses claims that could touch upon all of Malta’s MEPs, MaltaToday has learnt.

The investigation was launched to also look into reports by this newspaper over claims of inflated staff salaries, designed to claim as much as possible the monies from the European Parliament’s budget for MEPs’ assistants; as well as declarations of a €4,000 monthly allowance known as the general expenses allowance being made up by fictitious amounts and with no backing fiscal documentation.

News of the inquiry prompted a former aide to Nationalist MEP David Casa to write to OLAF director-general Ville Itälä, requesting he give information on how staff salaries were inflated so as to retain the money for other purposes.

In the letter, the aide has furnished OLAF with additional and specific information indicating precisely all the salaries paid since being employed by the side of Casa.

Referring to the salary paid in 2008 – well over €101,000 and more than any other MEP earned at the time – the aide says: “The exaggerated salary was purposely designed to allow for monies to be funnelled back. It is also not true as reported in the Maltese media that I received extra finances for my translocation to Malta. The translocation occurred a year later in 2009. Additionally, I should add that the paying agent quoted in the media is not the paying agent pertaining to 2008.”

The letter goes on stating that the aide “was paid in excess of my salary but never pocketed the full amount of this deliberately inflated salary. The reason for this: the money was retained by the paying agent working for the MEP… and utilised for other purposes.”

Tax records from 2006 to 2012 were sent to the OLAF director, and these have been issued by the tax authorities so that they can be independently verified by the anti-fraud agency. “My actual salary was overstated by thousands. The precise amounts I received can be verified by cheques issued by the paying agent and deposits made at the HSBC bank.”

David Casa has hit out at reports on the way he has run his office and denied claims made by the former aide.

The tax records seen by MaltaToday show that Casa paid his former aide a total of €101,513 in 2008 (tax assessment year 2009), a record salary that would have meant the aide was even paid more than MEPs themselves that same year – when salaries were tagged at €92,000 under new statute rules.

The aide claims he was never actually paid that full amount, and that his actual salary was overstated by some €35,000 to €40,000.

The transparency declarations presented by Casa to the Nationalist Party show that his office always returned a small sum – around 5% to 7% – from the total €270,000 EP budget that is made available to MEPs to employ staff. But the aide says his €100,000 salary was devised so as to retain part of that budget.

Additionally, he has said he personally made up the figures declared in Casa’s transparency declaration on the €50,000 general expenses allowance. “In order to ensure we claim the full EP budget for general expenses, the figures were made up for costs for office management, office equipment, communications, conferences and events, and stationery, so that we could claim the full budget. There are no receipts to back up the full amount,” the aide said.

The allegation confirms the shortcoming for this part of all MEPs’ expenses budgets. An EU court has recently rejected calls for greater transparency, and upheld a decision by the European Parliament to not require MEPs to reveal how they spend public money intended for their offices, by providing invoices and receipts for their constituency office costs.

Casa’s aide has insisted with MaltaToday that this lack of transparency allowed him to make up fictional amounts so that the expenses budget could be justified in full. “Most MEPs claim the maximum office allowance… There is no requirement to provide invoices, receipts or any details on how the funds are spent.”

The MEP has denied any fictitious rounding up of expenses and has insisted that all employee salaries were received in full “in the manner agreed with them, and in conformity with any applicable rules. Salaries are paid either by bank transfer or by cheque. I have no right, interest or ability to monitor what staff deposit in bank accounts.”

The former aide has already supplied a sworn affidavit detailing the euro-parliamentarian’s cocaine habit between the years 2009 and 2017 during which the two had a close relationship.

In his declaration, the aide blows the whistle on weekends spent in hotels where Casa would consume cocaine, spending some €700 on these sessions. The aide described Casa being “hyper” and being “so taken up by this drug habit that he would miss important political events and other private functions. There were also instances of drug taking in his office at the PN HQ but this did not continue after September 2017. His drug habits were well known to his entourage and most of his close aides and friends.”

Casa has denied the allegation.