Heritage Malta mum on a €1.2 million direct order for a trailer company in Hamrun
Heritage Malta, currently under fire for the way it took the lease of a historic palace in Mdina as a ‘temporary’ restaurant, is now also refusing to explain a €1.2 million direct order issued last year to rent garages in Ħal Far from a company closely linked to the Hamrun community – the same district contested by the minister who was previously in charge of the agency, Jose’ Herrera.
Shift is informed that through a direct order signed in May 2021 by the current chief executive of the national heritage agency, the political appointee Noel Zammit, Alfaran Trailers Maintenance and Logistics Services Limited is being paid approximately €200,000 in a year for the lease of five large garages. in the Hal Far industrial estate.
The Shift is informed that the garages, which Heritage Malta calls warehouses, are being used as a reserve storage facility for artefacts of national importance in the agency’s possession.
The lease agreement with Alfaran stipulates that the garages must be used by the government agency for the next six years, until 2027, with the possibility of extending the lease for another two years.
In that case, the company based in Hamrun will be making around €1.6 million from taxpayers’ funds from the storage space that Heritage Malta is using. The contract also stipulates that it is the agency and not the tenant that is responsible for all costs related to the maintenance and upkeep of the warehouses, including the maintenance of the alarm and CCTV security systems.
The profitable lease procurement was not published through a tender, as stipulated by the public procurement rules, and instead was issued through a non-competitive direct order, according to information published in the Government Gazette. It is not yet clear whether the lease was made after, at the very least, an Expression of Interest to ascertain that the government agency was getting value for its money.
So far, the CEO of the publicly funded agency has refused to respond to several questions received by The Shift.
Zammit was asked to say why a tender was not issued for the acquisition and to explain how the agency identified and chose the Hal Far warehouses instead of similar private warehousing facilities available in the market.
Zammit was also asked if the current Alfaran warehouses in Hal Far are covered with all the necessary permits and if the minister responsible for Heritage Malta at the time, Jose’ Herrera, was involved in the decision to rent the fund of the Hamrun family.
The owners of Alfaran, the Abelas are a large Hamrun business family known to be closely involved in all activities connected to the Hamrun community, from the town’s festival to its football club.
They are considered to carry a significant amount of influence in Hamrun through sponsorships in money or in kind of many events that take place in the city of the First District.
Until the last general election Herrera, the minister who was previously in charge of Heritage Malta, was always elected from the First District, with Hamrun being the largest city in his constituency. In the last elections he was removed, however, by the former Mayor of the Labor Party Keith Azzopardi Tanti, with Herrera consequently losing his position in the cabinet and the parliamentary seat he occupied for several years.
Led by the former Principal Permanent Secretary Mario Cutajar, who through his appointment in the agency was given a pension of some €20,000 shortly after he retired from the Office of the Prime Minister, the agency was hit by a series of scandals. which mainly involved the mismanagement of public funds.
The latest scandal uncovered by The Shift has to do with the lease of the courtyard of Palazzo Vilhena in Mdina as a restaurant for a small €50 per day. Conversely, the price of the set menu in the restaurant was €120 a head.
So far, Noel Zammit, responsible for the lease of the courtyard of the palace to the owners of Taverna Grotto in Rabat, has not yet explained why a tender was not issued for this lease.
The latest lack of transparency from the public agency is putting pressure on the new culture minister in charge of Heritage Malta, Owen Bonnici, to put his house in order as the island faces severe measures to reduce costs due to the unprecedented and unprecedented national debt. inflation levels.