Opinion: Clint Camilleri’s clout

Gozo Minister Clint Camilleri spent €18.5 million on one road that should have cost €1.8 million.  That’s a tenfold increase, a 1,000% hike.  That’s a catastrophic miscalculation.

Now, assume for one minute that there were no backhanders, no rubble walls, reservoirs and ramps built for friends out of taxpayers’ money, and no architect friend who made over €726,000 out of that single project.

Assume no favourite contractor was given three separate contracts to build the same single road. Assume Clint Camilleri did his very best to complete that project, always acted honestly and diligently and never broke any rules. And yet that one single road from Nadur to Għajnsielem took him five years to complete and cost us over 10 times what was initially budgeted. Wouldn’t you sack him for gross incompetence?

Even if Camilleri had every good intention, he failed so spectacularly that he couldn’t possibly be trusted with any other project, let alone with the Gozo ministry. Camilleri has his Nadur-Għajnsielem road as living proof of his floundering ineptitude.

And that’s the best-case scenario: he’s just a disorganised bungler who can’t get anything right.

But this isn’t the best-case scenario.  The report by the National Audit Office (NAO) clearly indicates that Camilleri wasn’t driven by the best intentions.

Camilleri knew full well that the Nadur-Għajnsielem road project stank to high heaven.  That’s why he put all the spokes in the NAO’s wheels to prevent them from discovering the complete truth. He had plenty to hide.

The little that the NAO’s valiant efforts managed to uncover is just a taste of the shocking abuse in Camilleri’s little empire.

In 2018, that Nadur road sustained severe damage.  So the Gozo ministry, then led by Justyne Caruana, awarded a road construction company a contract worth €652,207.  Soon after, that contractor realised he needed more money to fix that road. So the Gozo ministry awarded him another contract, more than ten times bigger  –  €9.3 million.

That wasn’t enough.  So, the same contractor was given another contract worth another €6.7 million.  For the same road, which was meant to cost €652,207, that single contractor got almost €18 million.

That project, which began in 2018 under Justyne Caruana, had not been completed by 2023 after three full years of Clint Camilleri’s leadership. By October 2024, not even a provisional acceptance certificate had been issued.

The whole project was an utter disaster.  In February 2019, the Gozo ministry paid €112,061 for excavations before having any professional architect assess the road terrain.

When they realised the ground beneath the road was crumbling, they finally employed a geotechnical engineer and paid him €94,400.  By August, he produced a report that cost another €18,800 and then his services were terminated.

Just two months later, the contractor engaged a company to repeat those geotechnical investigations.  That company produced another report by January 2020. But the Gozo ministry, under Clint Camilleri, engaged the same company to do the same work.

That same company produced and was paid for two reports—one for the contractor and one for the minister—which, surprise, surprise, gave the same results. Clint Camilleri paid €420,000 of our money for that duplicate report.

Camilleri spent another €1.5 million in “ancillary costs.” Of those, €726,054 went to Camilleri’s friend Godwin Agius —almost three-quarters of a million euro.

The Gozo minister’s chaos was mind-boggling.  The work done by the contractor between July 2020 and February 2021 and between 2022 and 2023 was not even covered by a signed agreement.  The commencement date was 2 March 2020, but the agreement was only signed in March 2021 – a full year later.

Between August 2018 and January 2019, the contractor had no insurance cover.  For the periods when he did have insurance, the sum insured did not comply with the applicable contract.

Although the contractor was obliged to keep a daily work register, those registers that were kept were not signed by either the Gozo ministry or the contractor, rendering them invalid.

Bizarrely, the NAO was provided work sheets for days when the work was suspended after 1 November 2021.  Yet there were no worksheets after 30 May 2022, when the work resumed.

That contractor should have been fined €500 for every missing daily register, but the Gozo ministry decided not to impose that penalty, letting the friendly contractor keep all his loot.

The architect serving as the road foundations expert had no performance guarantee until four months after starting his role.  That guarantee was only valid until September 2022, but work was still ongoing until 2023, and the same architect raised an invoice for €115,032 in October 2023.

There wasn’t even a project proposal drawn up and no proposal was submitted for approval to the finance ministry prior to commencement of the works. There was no financial approval covering the overall project costs.

No wonder Clint Camilleri obstructed the NAO.  His ministry took six whole weeks before agreeing to meet NAO staff.

Files requested in October 2023 were only provided in February 2024.  The files provided didn’t include the requested documentation.

The bills of quantities didn’t include sufficient details about what work was done.  Costs incurred as part of the project were lumped into one line item with other road projects concealing where the money really went.

The Gozo ministry failed to provide photographic evidence of works that were certified.  When the NAO complained, the Gozo ministry replied that they had the photos but just didn’t give them to the NAO.

The NAO’s conclusion was damning: “MGOZ (Ministry for Gozo) is to ensure good governance, accountability and transparency in the management of public funds”.

The ministry’s response was hilarious. It said, “the ministry remains committed to upholding the highest standards of good governance, accountability and transparency”.

Prime Minister Robert Abela has no excuse now.  He knows what Camilleri is up to. The NAO spelt it out for him.

Camilleri is incompetent at best and criminal at worst. Yet Abela didn’t sack him or reprimand him. He didn’t even demand an explanation from his minister. Instead, he steadfastly defended him. Camilleri has a real hold over his boss.