Silvio Schembri’s shameless exoneration

So Silvio Schembri had been using office space in Luqa belonging to developer Paul Attard of Gap Ltd since at least early 2022 without paying a cent. 

A complaint about Schembri’s potential conflict of interest was lodged with the Standards Commissioner on 27 March 2023.  Two months later, on 5 May, Schembri bought the property for peanuts.  

Just weeks earlier, in February 2023, Attard was given right of first refusal on a 4,000 square-metre parcel of public green land at Mellieha’s il-Qortin despite huge opposition from the public. He’s now building a massive 109-apartment complex on that green land.

Schembri refused to publish information on the deal. Until April 2023, he refused to answer questions, in and outside parliament, about whether he owned the property or was paying rent. Now we know why – he didn’t own it and wasn’t paying rent. 

Schembri benefitted from using that Luqa office for his political campaigning for months. Developer Paul Attard had changed the plans on that block to squeeze in the office for Schembri. 

Attard got a massive tract of public land for peanuts.  Yet the Standards Commissioner concluded that Schembri didn’t even have a perceived conflict of interest. 

Commissioner Joseph Azzopardi decided that “if the complaint could be justified when it was lodged, today that’s no longer the case since the Honorable Schembri has acquired that property”.

Based on his flawed logic, the Standards Commissioner dismissed the complaint as unfounded and closed the case. 

The Commissioner seemed to be in a big rush to exonerate Schembri. He made vague comments in his report about some very odd circumstances in the sale of that property. 

He noted that a promise of sale had been signed as early as 15 December 2021, and the sale should have been completed by 30 June 2022.   But the sale only occurred on 5 May 2023, well after the complaint reached the Commissioner’s office. 

“It is not clear why the contract of sale took so long,” the Commissioner noted, but he didn’t bother to follow this up.

More importantly, he overlooked key pieces of evidence.  He failed to request copies of communication or Whatsapp messages between the Lands Authority CEO Robert Vella, Minister Schembri and Paul Attard.

The Commissioner failed to challenge Schembri who hinted that he paid €180,000 “on the promise of sale of the office at Luqa”.   In fact, the contract of sale indicates that “the global price of €40,000… is being paid by the purchasers to the vendor company on this final deed of today”. 

The original promise of sale agreement, dated 15 December 2021, revealed that the €180,000 agreed price was not for the office.  The agreed price for the office was just €30,000.  The remaining €150,000 was for an apartment in the same block. 

Strangely, the final contract of sale was only signed on 5 May 2023. By then, Schembri had been using that office for at least 16 months. 

The Commissioner completely overlooked the suspicious changes in the price.  He completely disregarded the low price Schembri paid. He concluded that Schembri had no conflict of interest, not even a perceived conflict of interest.

Why? Because after using that office space for months without paying a cent, Schembri eventually bought it for a pittance. 

But that wasn’t all. Schembri was also using office space in Siggiewi that belonged to Anton Camilleri, tal-Franciz, the man for whom Labour changed the local plans to allow him to develop Villa Rosa. 

The Lands Authority sold Camilleri a public alley estimated to be worth €3 million in one of Malta’s prime spots for just €134,000, while Schembri was using Camilleri’s office in Siggiewi for his political campaigning.

It turns out Schembri was paying just €3.50 per day for those offices.  That’s a meagre €105 per month. The cheapest rental currently available for a tiny 10 sqm office in B’Kara costs €2,450 per month.  

The Standards Commissioner vaguely commented that “this seems like a rather low rate compared to current commercial rentals but the exponent (the Commissioner) cannot arbitrarily decide about this”.

What can he decide on then? It’s blatantly obvious to anybody living on this planet that €3.50 a day is a ridiculous sum.  It’s clear to all that €319.38 for three months’ rental is nowhere near commercial rates. In fact, it’s a gift.

The potential conflict of interest is blatantly obvious to everyone except the Standards Commissioner.

The Commissioner hadn’t humiliated himself enough. He spent nine whole paragraphs trying to convince us that Schembri – Lands Minister at the time – has no control over the Lands Authority. 

He argued that even if Schembri did receive any benefits or gifts from those wealthy developers, he couldn’t possibly reward them because “the law doesn’t give the Minister the power to give instructions on transfers of land”.  

The Commissioner reasoned that only five out of 10 members on the Lands Authority board of governors were appointed by Schembri.  But another two are appointed by the Prime Minister, and two others by two of Schembri’s fellow ministers. 

Only one member of the Lands Authority board of governors is appointed by the Opposition.  The Commissioner wants us to believe that with nine members appointed by Labour on a 10-member board, Schembri has no control over the Lands Authority.

Does Commissioner Azzopardi imagine it was pure coincidence that 4,000 sqm of public land in il-Qortin was suddenly put up for sale? Is it also a coincidence that the right to first refusal on that land was given to the man who, for months, let Minister Schembri use his Luqa office for free and then sold it to him for peanuts? 

Is it also a coincidence that a public alley was put up for sale on the eve of an election, and the sole bidder who offered just Є154 more than the minimum bid happened to be Schembri’s landlord? 

The Standards Commissioner is doing untold harm to the country. But far worse damage to his own reputation.