Independent election candidate Arnold Cassola has requested Standards Commissioner George Hyzler to initiate an investigation into The Shift’s revelations linked to Minister Ian Borg and questionable direct orders to The Events Company (TEC).
On Saturday, The Shift revealed that TEC provided Borg with at least six massive tents and related costly services to organise electoral campaign events in his districts during the last general elections. Just a few months before the general elections, Borg’s ministry issued some 20 direct orders worth almost €0.5 million to the same company in just one day.
“In this country of ours, run by politicians who are dirty and untruthful, something happens every day,” Cassola wrote, while asking Hyzler to investigate The Shift’s article.
Cassola asked Hyzler to look into how Borg gave €0.5 million to TEC in just one day and whether the services given to Borg by TEC during his personal electoral campaign were a “kind of commission”.
“If they were not (a commission), and Borg paid for them himself, this means that he broke the law as it exceeds the €40,000 permissible by law,” he noted.
Cassola requested that Hyzler verifies whether Borg was truthful in his declaration of spendings.
Borg refused to answer questions by The Shift about how many times he used TEC and related companies during the last electoral campaign, or to provide a breakdown of expenses incurred, including receipts to prove payments.
He told this newsroom that he has already presented his campaign expenses declaration to the electoral commission in which all details were listed. Asked to provide a copy of this report, as the Electoral Commission has still not made it public, as it is obliged by law to do, Borg refused.
Sources close to the events industry told The Shift that each time a tent, such as that used by Borg, is procured, TEC normally charges clients between €6,000 and €10,000 per event. In all, Borg organised massive gatherings using TEC’s tents on at least six occasions in different locations, including Dingli, Mgarr, Siggiewi, Rabat, Qormi, and Zebbug.
This minister should made to resign. Filthy!
Resign? He should have resigned ages ago, after his devious method of application for his matrimonial home on his property, which was filed under the name of a third party, who also declared first that he was the sole owner of the site, and later that the site was owned by Borg’s father. Borg says he wanted to set up his residential home, but he obtained a permit for two dwelling units, thus substantially getting a permit for twice the permissible size of one home.
Ian Borg is one of the dinosours of Joseph Mvscat IXXIH’s era. Dinosours do not resign. They become extinct over time.
As I said on another comments board, Ian Borg does not represent me when he represents the people of Malta in foreign affairs.
He was a prominent member of the Disgraced Former Prime Minister Joseph Mvscat’s cabinet which was found by a Public Inquiry to be collectively responsible for the climate of impunity in the country which created the conditions for the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia, a Maltese citizen and journalist. How does he pretend to have the credentials to represent the Maltese, who generally live by the rule of law?