Minister failed to declare discounted penthouse in Cabinet asset declarations

Social Housing Minister Roderick Galdes is facing increasing pressure after it emerged that a penthouse he purchased at a heavily discounted price from contractors linked to his ministry was not recorded in his cabinet declarations of assets in 2021 and 2022  in apparent breach of the ministerial code of ethics.

Galdes, who has been under pressure over the 2021 acquisition of a duplex penthouse in developer Joseph Portelli’s Hal-Gelmus complex in Gozo, insisted in an interview on Monday that the €140,000 property had been included in his official disclosures. However, an examination of Cabinet declarations published for 2021 and 2022 shows no reference to the penthouse.

The minister declined to respond to questions from The Shift on why the property was omitted in 2021 and 2022 and to provide the document in which he made his declaration.

The controversy is compounded by Prime Minister Robert Abela’s decision to halt the publication of cabinet members’ declarations in 2023, defying orders from both the Standards Commissioner and the Data Protection Commissioner.

The prime minister has also refused calls by The Shift to release the unpublished filings of the embattled minister, which would show whether Galdes rectified the omission in subsequent submissions.

Discrepancies over Sicily assets

Galdes has also come under pressure regarding a separate property in Sicily.

Questioned on Tuesday about his expanding real estate portfolio – despite an annual ministerial salary of around €60,000 – he said the Sicilian residence had been purchased in 2008, “during a PN administration and at the height of the financial crisis”.

Yet the asset does not appear in his 2014 declaration, the first filed after entering Cabinet.

At the time, he listed a residence and an office in Qormi, a house in Luqa, a studio in Middlesex, UK, and an apartment in Xagħra, Gozo.

Since then, his property holdings have grown significantly.

According to the last publicly available declaration (2022), Galdes added additional offices in Qormi, an unconverted house in Siġġiewi, an old ground-floor residence in Qormi, and a house in Sicily surrounded by fields – in addition to a stake in another piece of land in Sicily.

His latest discounted penthouse in Gozo has yet to be listed in publicly available declarations.

His outstanding loans also increased from €173,000 in 2014 to €249,000 in 2022.

Last week, former Labour MEP Marlene Mizzi publicly accused Galdes of cultivating overly close relationships with contractors and interfering in social housing projects. These allegations further inflame criticism of transparency and governance within the Labour administration.