Confirmed: Minister’s colleague paid €773,000 by direct order on Nadur road despite denials

A senior architect with close personal and professional ties to Gozo and Planning Minister Clint Camilleri earned more than €770,000 from a single road project in Gozo, after being awarded two direct order contracts by the ministry, according to documents released to The Shift following a prolonged legal battle.

Godwin Agius, an architect from Żebbuġ, was paid a total of €773,000 for supervising the reconstruction of a key arterial road connecting Nadur and Għajnsielem. The payments stemmed from two separate direct orders issued by the Gozo Ministry, bypassing competitive procurement processes.

The contracts, disclosed after a two-year legal battle won by The Shift, show that Agius was first engaged in 2020 to oversee the €10 million infrastructure project on behalf of the ministry. For this role, he received €378,000 in fees.

A year later, as project costs escalated significantly, Agius was granted a second direct order in the form of an addendum to his original contract, worth a further €393,000, exceeding the value of the initial agreement.

The contracts were signed by John Borg, then the permanent secretary at the Gozo Ministry, criticised by the Auditor General for his disregard for public procurement rules.

By the project’s conclusion, completed years after it was promised, the overall cost of the road had almost doubled since its original estimate, while Agius – a government employee who simultaneously operates a private architectural practice – emerged as one of the largest individual beneficiaries.

The National Audit Office (NAO) subsequently raised serious concerns about the quality of Agius’s work on the project, describing the supervision services as “unsatisfactory”, citing discrepancies in payments authorised to contractors and a lack of documentation confirming that certain works had been completed.

The audit also noted allegations that works were carried out on privately owned land adjacent to the road by the same contractor engaged by the ministry. While the Gozo Ministry denied that public funds were used for private works, it did not dispute that the project’s final cost far exceeded initial projections.

The case has drawn further scrutiny because of Agius’s close relationship with Minister Camilleri.

During the period in which Agius was supervising the Nadur Road project, The Shift revealed that his private architectural firm operated from a property in Nadur owned by the minister’s mother. The building had previously served as Camilleri’s political office. Electoral records also show that Camilleri was registered as residing at the same address, despite living in Victoria.

Following Camilleri’s assumption of responsibility for the planning portfolio, Agius was appointed to the executive committee of the Planning Authority – its most powerful decision-making body. He was also awarded additional road projects in Gozo while employed full-time as a senior project manager at the Gozo Regional Development Authority (GRDA), an entity falling under the same ministry.

Agius and Camilleri share a professional history that predates their current roles.

Both worked at Med Design, an architectural firm owned by former Labour minister Charles Buhagiar. Agius has been active within the Labour Party for years, including serving as a counting hall agent during elections.

Since Labour returned to power in 2013, Agius has accumulated a series of government appointments and contracts, including roles at Enemalta and Engineering Resources Ltd, as well as direct orders awarded to his private practice.

One recent contract involved a €150,000 Enemalta-funded project in Minister Miriam Dalli’s constituency.

In addition to his Planning Authority role, Agius currently chairs Interconnect Malta, the state entity overseeing a €200 million electricity interconnector with Sicily, and the Construction Industry Licensing Committee within the Building and Construction Authority.