A group of four entertainment entrepreneurs are receiving a government subvention of at least €2.6 million a year to throw a week-long party this summer even though entrance to the festival is against a fee.
The Summer Daze Festival was conceived in the time of disgraced former tourism minister Konrad Mizzi and is being held again this year at the Ta’ Qali National Park with the Malta Tourism Authority footing a significant part of the bill.
Information on how the direct order for 356 Entertainment Group is being handled by the ministry, now under Minister Clayton Bartolo, emerged in a National Audit Office report published this week.
The report mentions how the International Radio Festival held in 2018 at the Granaries in Floriana had been stopped over irregularities in the use of public funds made available for the concert.
It also notes how the agreement between the MTA and 356 Entertainment which covers the organisation, management and promotion of the Summer Daze Festival.
“Budget for this event was set at €2.692 million (VAT excluded) and all the payments made were in line with this amount,” the NAO report states.
Sources at the MTA told The Shift that while the businessmen behind this event had already been receiving millions from the MTA for other parties and events, the sum quoted for last year’s Summer Daze party was “astronomical” and “totally unnecessary”.
“The MTA is meant to support the industry and not make certain businessmen millionaires. Can the minister explain why he needs to spend €2.7 million of public funds to attract tourists to Malta in the peak season?” one senior tourism operator asked.
The Summer Daze festival, which includes satellite parties at other venues including one at the Uno Village club in Ta’ Qali owned by the same businessmen, is held in Santa Marija week in mid-August.
Apart from the multimillion-euro government deal, the organisers also charge €10 a head for entry, receive hefty sponsorships from the private sector and sell millions of euros worth of food, drink and other goods and services.
Set up in 2015, 356 Entertainment Group Limited is owned equally by four different companies.
Trevor Camilleri, under the name of Twenty-Two Twelve Ltd, is the main face of the business. He has been organising parties for several years and is involved in other businesses including the thriving Veduta restaurant family business in Rabat.
His partners are 1978 Holdings Ltd, owned by Gerald Debono, Est1985 Co Ltd, owned by Nicholas Spiteri and Zat Investments Ltd owned by Edward Zammit Tabona and his sister Francesca Manduca.
In a recently-published interview, Trevor Camilleri boasted about how the company has become “one of the island’s leading events companies offering clients anything from events management and logistics to talent booking and marketing”.
Describing last year’s Summer Daze festival as a “historic event hosting 60,000 people over two huge events,” he thanked everyone involved, “especially 356 Entertainment, Visit Malta (MTA), Bold Bishop and all local suppliers who made part of it in any way.”
Ruffjani tal prima.
An up-dated version of Mintoff’s famous recommendation to his Finance Minister while the latter was reeling out the abundance of that year’s Budget:-“AHLEB GUS – U GIB LIL MIN JAHLEB MIEGHEK”
Was it a case when corned beef was removed from import restrictions? But then came Michelle shouting out ” Make Hay while the Sun Shines”. She would not say ” Ahleb Gus” , for obvious reasons.
Where is the new CEO in all of this?
Probably doesn’t want to rattle the cage while him and his wife enjoy comfortable posts given to them by the Prime Minister on one side and the Leader of the Labour Party on the other side! Despite this damning report there he was a couple of days ago proudly addressing the press conference to launch this year’s edition of this event
Minghajr il-miljuni tal-gvern… dawn l-events xorta u dejjem saru. Hemm xi haga tinten.
A couple of million here and another couple there, and soon you’re talking real money. Nine billion in the hole, and counting…
Surely, the local residents of Mdina and Rabat will have the noise emanating from the event for free, together with some sleepless nights.
I am also rather sure that, given the wind blows in various different directions, the sound would even carry beyond that area.
The PL ‘Monopoly’ with lots of money. I can only guess what sort of tourists they are trying to attract to come to Malta. One might have a chat with the locals on the island of Majorka and surely, they can tell a lot of stories from their experiences with tourists that always visit the same places and are permanently drunk to the hilt.
I always avoided to go to Majorka because of the negative image it has due to this sort of tourists. Now, seeing that Malta is already on the path to become a similar place at the centre of the Med, a holiday in Malta becomes even more repulsive.
‘Grazi hafna MTA’.
The phrase that some can ‘stink of money’ looks to become more palpable these days, contrary to the Latin phrase ‘pecunia non olet’. But well, the PL is ‘(in-)famous’ to have the capability to turn all and everything upside down, as long as the money comes flowing in.
I connect all that to the ‘partying’ tradition, established by Joseph Muscat for he’s the prime example of how to ‘party’. This is really sickening and it sucks beyond description. Not enough to destroy the country by and with the ‘concrete Barons’, but even worse, make life a hell for the locals too. I just wait until all this is to finally hit home to the PL voters in their own localities and give them the effect of mental problems stemming from noise and air pollution. Surely, they’d rather find some excuses and ‘get on with it’.
One might say that before 2013, Malta might have been perceived as being a bit ‘boring’ for ‘the lack of big and loud partying’, but it was at least a bit more quiet and less polluted, for the benefit of both, the locals and the tourists.
These times are definitely gone. The mantra of the Muscat PL: ‘money, money, money’, replaced it.