Cassola's Victory: Infrastructure Malta forced to handover documents in relation to Marsa Junction Probe

Dr. Arnold Cassola, one of the leading independent candidates in the upcoming MEP elections, has achieved an important victory in his relentless quest for transparency in The Marsa Junction Project. 

The high-profile infrastructure initiative is rapidly emerging as a potential political scandal poised to capture public attention in the coming months. Allegations of financial misconduct suggest that a substantial portion of the €40 million project funds may have been spent on bribes.

The Information and Data Protection Commissioner has slammed Infrastructure Malta for failing to provide Dr. Cassola with critical meeting minutes related to a pivotal decision in the project’s trajectory.

Two years prior, Dr. Cassola submitted a Freedom of Information (FOI) request seeking records from an Infrastructure Malta meeting. It was at this meeting that the decision was made to entrust the €40 million Marsa Junction Project to a company that hadn't even participated in the initial bidding process.

The Commissioner's rebuke underscores a severe lapse in transparency on the part of the agency and the growing anger at government agencies believing that they can restrict information that belongs in the public sphere.

Dr. Cassola's Statement:

"Yet another scandal emerges, highlighting the amateurish manner in which Malta’s procurement processes are manipulated by a select few. This flawed tendering system continues to drain the Maltese public’s finances while delivering subpar services, unworthy of a developed European nation. We must persist in holding our politicians accountable and remain unwavering in our belief that we deserve better.

My dedication to political transparency and integrity has been unwavering throughout my 35-year career in politics. I remain steadfast in these convictions. This is the moral consistency I offer to the Maltese public, and I urge them to support these values in the upcoming elections on June 8."

BACKSTORY

The contract has attracted the attention of EU anti-fraud prosecutors and the National Audit Office. Data on murder suspect Yorgen Fenech’s mobile phone in November 2019 showed evidence of chats with former agency- CEO Fredrick Azzopardi with Azzopardi asking Yorgen Fenech for “about 45% from €11 million” in connection with the project. Other exchanges seemed to indicate Fenech’s background role as a middleman in the project, against the promise of €2 million in “success fees”, half of which were planned to be funneled to a secret offshore company linked to 17 Black.

The original tender was won by Ayhanlar, the Turkish contractor represented by Fenech, but it was crippled by financial trouble just weeks into being awarded the contract. As a result, works on the government’s flagship infrastructure project ground to a halt.

Then, the contract was quietly “reassigned” from Ayhanlar to a company owned by Turkish billionaire Robert Yildirim. No new tender was issued, nor was the tender awarded to the bidder who was next in line. Sources within the industry were shocked at the obscure and unfair way in which the multi-million contract was re-assigned.

Cassola asked for the minutes of the meetings when Infrastructure Malta made such a decision, however the roads agency continued to stone-wall and hide the process, leading to the Information and Data Protection Commissioner deciding that such information should be provided by Infrastructure Malta.

Cassola said, “Once more Infrastructure Malta has reneged on its duty of transparency, preferring to conceal how it decides to give away millions of public funds to certain persons without a regular and public process. Maltese citizens have a right to know how these grandiose projects are being assigned and who is getting a cut from them, and I intend to fight for that right”.

Arnold Cassola 

Independent MEP candidate