In his continued refusal in the face of massive public outcry to order a public inquiry into the circumstances leading to the Kordin construction site death of Jean Paul Sofia, Prime Minister Robert Abela has said the concession of the public land in question by INDIS Malta to shady developers should be investigated by INDIS Malta itself, or other government entities, rather than by a public inquiry.
Abela has insisted that if the ongoing magisterial inquiry does not delve into the allocation of public land and whether the Kordin plot was given under dubious circumstances, it should be investigated – not by a public inquiry but, rather by INDIS Malta itself or another government entity.
The Prime Minister made the statement in an interview with MaltaToday in the wake of widespread public condemnation of Abela and his MPs’ unanimous vote in Parliament against the institution of the public inquiry being demanded by Sofia’s family, the vast majority of civil society, the Opposition and the public at large.
The contractors and developers behind the 3 December 2022 tragedy that claimed the life of 20-year-old Jean Paul Sofia, and exactly how and under what circumstances the land was allocated to them by INDIS Malta, would presumably be a central aspect of any potential public inquiry that the government is pulling out all the stops to resist, perhaps for fear of the inquiry uncovering deeper rot.
There had been an initial wall of silence from the authorities about who was behind the tragedy when it happened last December. The Shift had revealed the individuals behind the development were Matthew Schembri and Kurt Buhagiar, who is also Lands Authority CEO Robert Vella’s driver.
Buhagiar and Schembri are shareholders in Allplus Ltd, which was set up in 2019 as a furniture manufacturing and construction company. The collapsed building was on public property allocated by INDIS Malta to Allplus Ltd for use as a timber factory.
Schembri and Buhagiar both have colourful pasts linked to human trafficking and the hiring of hitmen.
Recruited as the personal driver of the Lands Authority’s CEO in February 2021, 38-year-old Buhagiar had spent over a year in a Ragusa prison in 2011 after being apprehended, along with two other Maltese accomplices, by the Italian police for human trafficking between Libya, Malta and Sicily.
Buhagiar was recruited as a fitter by the Water Services Corporation before the 2017 elections and was later moved to the Lands Authority as Robert Vella’s personal driver.
According to The Times of Malta, Buhagiar had also worked as the driver of Malta Enterprise chairman William Wait when the industrial plot in Kordin was allocated to him and his business partner.
With Schembri, Buhagiar is a 50% shareholder in Allplus Ltd, which was developing the fated timber factory. He is also a shareholder in two other companies – SC Real Estate Ltd and 5B Limited – and is a director of Koperattiva Produtturi tal-Bhejjem Limitata.
Schembri, whose name was on the site’s development application – issued through a simple Development Notification Order by the Planning Authority in June 2022 – is meanwhile facing charges related to the alleged hiring of foreign hitmen to carry out an attack on his former wife’s father on the Sliema seafront.
The two alleged Albanian hitmen lived together in a Sliema apartment owned by Schembri and claimed they worked for him illegally and without payment.
In addition to his shareholding in Allplus Ltd, Schembri also owns Green Technologies Ltd and Whitefrost Company Ltd.
The doomed project’s architect, Adriana Zammit, is a former Planning Authority official and a full-time employee at Infrastructure Malta.
The contractor is known to have been Serbian national Miromir Milosovic, who had been working in Malta for a number of years before the tragedy. It is also still unclear whether the workers engaged on the site, including a Bosnian and three Albanians, had valid work permits.
Sign up to our newsletter Stay in the know
"*" indicates required fields
Campaigners call for Malta’s withdrawal from Eurovision over Israel’s participation
Former PBS editor, 70, pocketing €70,000 government consultancy
Internal AUM chats contradict university’s narrative about student hostel
PM adopts Galdes’ information blackout on Malita
Tags
#INDIS Malta
#Jean Paul Sofia
#Kordin
#Kurt Buhagiar
#Malta
#Matthew Schembri
#prime minister robert abela
#robert vella
Other News
Campaigners call for Malta’s withdrawal from Eurovision over Israel’s participation
Former PBS editor, 70, pocketing €70,000 government consultancy
Internal AUM chats contradict university’s narrative about student hostel
PM adopts Galdes’ information blackout on Malita
Thousands excluded from new long service allowance – Sultana silent
PM’s paid ‘grass expert’ contradicted by free advice
MFSA hikes in fees anger industry as watchdog splashes millions on direct orders
Planning Authority recommends Fawwara quarry expansion despite court eviction ruling
Toni Abela’s new government contract kept secret
Malita debacle: Galdes’s appointees axed, Carmen Ciantar enters
Abela’s expert took just three days for ‘solution’ on Ta’ Qali grass
Dear Ms Simone Cini wife of Dominic Azzopardi your husband was involved in the negotiations of the payments of golden handshakes to pilots, which resulted in the misuse of taxpayers’ money.
It is clear where your heart steers dear, it is your fat bank account and not your morals and sense of duty towards this country!
Looks like another Mafia clusterfuck, a lot that a public enquiry could expose and highlight the real associate killers in this tragedy. As things, stand this is going to get buried and all of the crooks associated with it will turn out to be beatified alter boys who attend confesion every week. Trust me.
If any one has any doubts this should confirm the Prime Minister is unfit for any position in public life, he is dishonest, deceitful and never to be trusted, this is the beginning of the end of him
Any self investigation is a farce , and the person who proposes it must be a cretin by self accreditation. The University needs to start awarding Doctorates Honoris Causa in Cretin Excellence.
What is the PN waiting for to call for the PM?s resignation like ADPD did?
And yet, the sheeple will continue to do as they’re told/bribed at the ballot boxes. None so blind as those who will not see beyond their partisan noses.
Surely, when a company is left to investigate itself, one cannot expect to have the truth come out and responsibility being taken. This is just another attempt to deflect from, and shift the blame to others in order to allegedly protect some others close to the PL.
The way the PL reacts to losses of life, whether it is a Maltese person or a foreign national, is already beyond the description that one could take as fitting with the term disgusting. It is the manifestation of utter contempt towards human life.
The PL is no longer a party for the people, in fact it never was, as it always served the interests of their own. Whatever they like to label themselves, they are neither socialist nor are they humanitarian and their sense of justice is non-existing. What is at the core of this party and their politicians is the utter self-serving, myopic, egotistical, greedy and intolerant as much as oppressive attitude towards those who are not with them.
Any person who considers oneself as being left-wing or centre-left can only distance oneself from this PL.
The present PM has shown time and again that he lacks a strong backbone. One has become accustomed to his twists and turns and evasive promises in order to get rid of the problems this rotten Muscat system has caused. A system which he is always defending, beyond the indefensible and he still acts like the advocat to his client. But not as the Prime Minister of the Republic of Malta who has by its constitution the fundamental obligation to serve every Maltese citizen, no matter what political stance might come in to it, becuse such things have to stay out of it in the first place.
This is all very sickening, the PL is sickening, the environmental distruction of Malta is sickening and above all, the greed of PL chums in various sectors of public life, protected and supported by and through the whole conduct of the PL govt is the whole disease from which Malta is suffering. First year after year, it got worse, then month after moth, week after week and for a considerable time, day by day.
There is hardly a period in all the long time of Malta’s history where a bunch of people have achieved within a decade, what every enemy forces to Malta from the outside have never accomplished. The worst that brings a country down is the rot from within and the PL is being more reckless than all the others before them in their efforts. They really must hate this country. I cannot explain it otherwise to me anymore. Nothing makes any sense anymore with this rotten party. The only thing that make sense is to have them voted out of power come the next opportunity in order to rid Malta from its worst maltreaters in history.
If INDIS Malta was at fault, how can it investigate itself. The truth will not come out. Only an independent body can do it for the truth to come out.
Ofcourse he does not want a public inquiry! I bet he is involved. He gave public land to his friends and one thinks that he is not involved in this piece of business?? What a filthy government!! Doing business with our land, people getting killed and no justice!! Whoever vote and support this filthy government is to blame!!
They do not hate Malta, well actuallly they do, they are all involved in this business! Like the survey about trust in police. The survey was done by the police itself and the government! What a farce! This government is so good into deceiving the nation for his own interest.
The Joker persists with his jokes
PM prefers INDIS Malta to investigate itself— NATURALLY, it’s a lot easier to cover up the criminal activities, when the criminals are the investigators.
Il-Prim Ministru hu l-akbar liability li ghandu l-Labour, warajh Silvio Schembri. L-IQ taghhom ikompli jirrovinahom.