When ministers pay peanuts for property, the public pays the price

In Malta, the going rate for office space, it seems, can be less than the price of a pack of bottled water. Would Anton Camilleri (tal-Franċiż) rent out office space to just anyone for €3.50 a day?

Anyone who’s been trying to rent knows that this price is absolutely ridiculous. It’s a token amount, pretending that everything is above board when it really isn’t.

The amount emerged in a report by The Standards Commissioner who investigated the matter of Minister Silvio Schembri’s rental of offices in Siggiewi and Luqa from two of Malta’s biggest developers – when he was Lands Minister.

It was The Shift that revealed the deals Schembri entered into with Camilleri and developer Paul Attard of GAP.  Notary Robert Aquilina then requested an investigation by the Standards Commissioner. He has publicly stated that nobody believes that’s the real cost.

The Commissioner’s report, released on Thursday, cleared Schembri of any ethical breach, declaring the complaints “unfounded.” There was no ethics breach, he concluded. Yet, buried in the same report is the admission that the minister was renting from Camilleri in Siggiewi and had a deal with Attard in Luqa – confirming The Shift’s reports.

The Commissioner’s report acknowledges a crucial point: even if decisions are officially made by a board rather than a minister, that doesn’t insulate the process from political influence. In other words, the mere existence of a board that decides on land transfers does not eliminate the risk of conflicts of interest when it comes to the Minister.

Camilleri was not just a landlord; he was, at the time, a man with business before the government. His Villa Rosa project in St Julian’s required a slice of public land. In due course, he got it — and for a fraction of its market value.

As for the deal with Paul Attard for an office in Luqa, Schembri had agreed to buy it for over a year before completing the purchase. He bought it after the investigation on his offices was launched.

Reports published by The Shift revealed that this office space was not part of the original architectural plans and appears to have been inserted into the building at a late stage by altering plans originally approved for residential use.

Matters are further complicated by a dispute in Mellieha, where the Lands Authority offered roughly 4,000 m² of public land at significantly below market value and included a questionable clause: the right of first refusal was granted to any adjacent property owner.

The company with such a position is T&S Property Holdings Ltd, in which Attard is the majority shareholder. This company was established only in 2021 and owns a small parcel of land embedded within the public land up for tender. The land was acquired at significantly reduced cost.

The optics, to put it mildly, are not flattering.

This is where the Maltese political landscape shows its peculiar elasticity. The Commissioner acknowledged that ministers can influence decisions, even when the law places final authority in the hands of a board. He recognised that potential conflicts of interest exist. But the letter of the law, narrowly applied, cleared the minister.

As long as the rules, as written, are not technically broken, ministers may sail close to the wind with impunity.

The result is a widening gulf between legality and legitimacy. Even if Schembri’s €3.50-a-day office passes legal muster, the question remains whether it passes the integrity test, or the credibility test for that matter.

When elected officials use property from developers with pending business before government, the public has every right to suspect that influence comes cheaply — and that the real cost will be borne in the currency of public trust.