It’s confidential: Ministers deny having access to Egrant inquiry

Ministers Chris Cardona, Konrad Mizzi and Edward Scicluna have all denied having access to the findings of the Egrant inquiry, despite a paragraph from the as yet unpublished report appearing in a court application they filed.

In response to questions in parliament by PN MP Jason Azzopardi on Monday, all three said they did not have access to the findings by Magistrate (now Judge) Aaron Bugeja beyond what had been made public by the Attorney General.

Yet, they failed to explain how their lawyers could quote a paragraph from the unpublished inquiry in a court application they filed when all of them said they do not have access to the information.

Last week, Justice Minister Owen Bonnici also avoided the question in Parliament, twice.

The inquiry looks into the third company, Egrant Inc, revealed in the Panama Papers leak. The other two were found to have been set up for Tourism Minister Konrad Mizzi and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Keith Schembri.

The paragraph quoted in the court application filed by Mizzi, Cardona and Scicluna referred to the findings of the Egrant inquiry that were not among the 49 pages so far published by the Attorney General.

Read: Truth slips: Is the Egrant inquiry the worst kept secret in town?

The three Ministers were submitting their response to a request by civil society organisation Repubblika for an investigation into their role in the Vitals Global Healthcare deal involving three of Malta’s public hospitals.

Repubblika has since filed an application in court asking that the three Ministers are ordered to give the organisation a copy of the document they quoted in court proceedings.

The Prime Minister, the Justice Minister, the Attorney General Peter Grech and government Head of Communications Kurt Farrugia have all denied sharing a copy of the full Egrant inquiry in their possession, other than with Muscat’s lawyer Pawlu Lia.

Yet, the court application filed by the three Ministers was signed by the firm of Aron Mifsud Bonnici, which Mizzi engages for his personal litigations in court.