Malita ousts contractor on Bormla social accommodation, replacing it with new Joseph Portelli company

Malita Investments plc, the beleaguered government financial vehicle used to fund various social accommodation projects, has ousted a company that won a €4.3 million tender for a delayed project in Bormla and replaced it with a new company formed by Gozitan construction magnates Joseph Portelli and Mark Agius, known as Ta’ Dirjanu.

Investigations by The Shift reveal that negotiations with Next Construction Ltd (the Portelli/Agius company) took place in late 2024, at the same time that the minister responsible for Malita, Roderick Galdes, was buying a penthouse from the two businessmen for the under-market price of €140,000.

It is unclear whether Next Construction was brought into the multi-million-euro project through a tender or a direct order. Neither is it known what the value of the new contract awarded to Next Construction is, nor why the company was selected.

Questions sent to Malita for clarification were met with complete silence, with the excuse that the former contractor, Calibre Industries Ltd, part of the Cortis Group, is now in litigation with Malita over the cancelled contract. A spokesman for Calibre confirmed the litigation but declined to comment further.

The story dates back to 2020, when, through a tender issued by Malita, Calibre Industries was awarded a €4.3 million contract for the finishing works of 65 apartments and 115 car parking spaces in the social housing project in Bormla.

The project, which has been ongoing since 2017 and was earmarked for completion and handover to tenants in 2020, is still nowhere near completion and is several million euro over budget.

In 2024, soon after Galdes was assigned political responsibility for Malita by Prime Minister Robert Abela, Calibre Industries was accused of delays and was ultimately removed from the contract. Instead, Next Construction, owned by Portelli and Agius, was brought in to continue the works through a new contract.

Next Construction was formed last April and was officially recognised as the new Malita contractor a few weeks later.

Sources told The Shift that officials from Galdes’s ministry were lobbying to stop Calibre and replace it with the Portelli-Agius duo.

Minister Roderick Galdes, currently under intense pressure to resign, insists that he does not interfere in the running of Malita. This contradicts claims by former Chair Marlene Mizzi, a former Labour MEP, who says she was ousted from the company after standing up to Galdes over what she describes as interference and close relations with contractors.

The latest revelations follow a report that the same minister conducted private business with the pair while awarding them contracts through the Housing Authority.

Through their company, Excel Housing, Portelli and Agius are beneficiaries of a multi-million-euro contract signed in 2024 to lease around 100 apartments to the government for social housing, mainly in Gozo.

The deal was sealed despite little real demand for social housing on the sister island, with Galdes coming under harsh criticism for uprooting vulnerable families in Malta to give them a flat in Gozo.

In 2018, Galdes told the media that by 2020, families would start using the new social accommodation units in Bormla. The work was never completed, and the project has come to a complete halt since Malita, under Galdes, ran out of cash.