Infrastructure Malta gives Labour Party official four direct orders in six months

Malta’s public roads agency awarded four direct orders costing taxpayers more than €67,000 in a span of just six months to a company owned by the Labour Party’s organising secretary William Lewis.

According to the latest list of direct orders published in the Government Gazette, Infrastructure Malta gave architectural firm Crowdnet Ltd direct orders worth €32,500, €10,400, €9,500, and €15,600 in the six months between June and December 2022.

The direct orders were related to four different studies on Malta’s road network.

The agency, led by politically-appointed CEO Ivan Falzon, was in all cases supposed to have issued a tender according to public procurement rules but, for reasons unknown, the PL official’s company was directly selected.

The work provided by Lewis’s company could have been performed by many other companies since it involved minor studies such as traffic counts on arterial roads and junctions.

Formed in 2016, Crowdnet Ltd is owned by William Lewis and his wife Odette, who is also an architect by profession.

The couple has been receiving tens of thousands of euros from the public coffers every year since Labour was returned to power in 2013, particularly through authorities previously under the political remit of Minister Ian Borg such as Transport Malta and Infrastructure Malta.

Lewis was involved in many controversial projects, including the Central Link Project, where he was paid tens of thousands of euros in direct orders.

He was more recently involved in the illegal work carried out by the Gozo Ministry in Comino. Lewis also receives remuneration for being a member of the board of another state company, Engineering Resources Ltd.

His wife Odette, who works at a private practice and as a University of Malta lecturer, also sits on the board of governors of the Lands Authority, which is never far from controversy.

She was appointed by Minister Ian Borg in 2017 and has been reconfirmed since Silvio Schembri became the minister responsible for lands.

Lewis’s PL administration colleague, Daniel Micallef is a partner in the X, Y, Z Ltd architectural firm and has also received frequent direct orders from the government and its agencies.

The Shift recently revealed how the government’s new €700 million Project Green Agency selected the PL Deputy Leader’s firm to draw up plans for an underpass in San Gwann and the creation of a garden above it.