MDA fails to submit accounts while claiming ENGO financial malpractice

The Malta Developers Association, headed by Michael Stivala, has not submitted its latest audited accounts to the Voluntary Organisations’ office despite Stivala’s allegations of malpractice in other NGOs’ funding, The Shift can report.

Stivala recently alleged that “almost all NGOs” accept funds from private businessmen as funding for campaigns and court cases against the donor’s competitors “almost all the time”, in a Times of Malta interview last Sunday. Seven prominent eNGOs have rejected the allegations, challenging Stivala to substantiate or retract his claims in a statement on Tuesday.

The Malta Council for the Voluntary Sector has similarly condemned the comments, calling them“unacceptable… without being substantiated with facts in hand,” in a statement on Wednesday.

VO Commissioner Jesmond Saliba asked Stivala on Tuesday to provide evidence for his claims, giving him 48 hours to do so by Thursday.

When contacted by The Shift, Stivala said that he had “no additional comments to make”, that he “is considering his options” and that he would respond in an upcoming statement.

The seven eNGOs – The Ramblers’ Association of Malta, Flimkien Ghal Ambjent Ahjar, Birdlife Malta, Friends of the Earth (Malta), Nature Trust Malta, Din L-Art Helwa and Moviment Grafitti – have all submitted their accounts for 2021, which is the latest required year.

The last audited accounts available for the Malta Developers Association are for 2020 and were submitted on 7 October 2021.

While some of the environmental NGOs specified funding for particular campaigns in their accounts, such funds are attributed to public donations and not to funding from individual businessmen as was claimed by Stivala.

In comments to MaltaToday, Saliba said that it was his duty to safeguard the voluntary sector at every level.

The voluntary council statement on Wednesday said that “it is unacceptable that individuals within or outside the Voluntary Sector make allegations without being substantiated with facts in hand”.

The council said it “strongly supports all voluntary organisations in the sector in their diversity and sometimes opposing natures.”

In the interview, Stivala defended a consultancy contract offered to disgraced former prime minister Joseph Muscat in 2019, the year he was forced to step down.

He claimed that Muscat reports to the Stivala Group offices in Gżira two to three times a week and denied that the contract is any form of repayment for Muscat administration decisions that favoured the developer.