Mintoff, who is the architect of Santumas, initially alerted High Point Ltd’s perit Wallace Farrugia of his concerns in January 2020 but took to the authorities a few months later after his warnings went unheeded. Farrugia is also a director of High Point Ltd, however, Mintoff was unaware until recently.

In his report, Mintoff cited extension works done in 2019 as the cause of the damages to shared party walls which showed signs of compression failure – meaning they were being crushed under pressure.

These extension works were completed by Farrugia who disagreed with Mintoff’s concerns. 

In Mintoff’s May 2020 report, he stated that urgent repairs and upgrades needed to take place to ensure that the party wall could safely support the building without putting neighbours at risk.

Mintoff further warned that no construction work should take place in adjacent properties until this reinforcement is completed, adding that no extra weight or floors should be added to the building either.

Delaying these works would worsen the damage and degrade the structure even further, he wrote. Alas, these repairs and upgrades did not happen because owners were reassured they were not needed by other periti, Mintoff said. 

Mintoff told the newsroom that this report was circulated to the Building Regulation Office (now the Building and Construction Authority [BCA]), then-interim Police Commissioner Carmelo Magri, the St Julian’s Local Council, High Point Ltd, Wallace Farrugia, Joseph Farrugia (a director), the owners of the adjacent building as well as other non-governmental entities.

Wallace Farrugia argued that some damages noted by Mintoff were already present in a conditions report completed prior to the works. He further questioned why Mintoff first reported damages in January 2020 when the works were completed in September 2019.

In light of the disagreement, an independent party was brought in to address the concerns. He decided to do a theoretical report which means that he did not assess the aftermath of the extension, rather, he wrote a report assuming the levels were not yet built.

The theoretical report done in September 2020 found little issue with an extension however, Mintoff maintained that the real-world conditions led to damages which he observed a second time in November of that year. By this point, the damage was already worse.

These reports and responses were all seen by Lovin Malta.

Mintoff explained that the following years involved several correspondences between the company and High Point Ltd where they continued disagreeing on the structural integrity of Tania Flats. This has not been independently verified.

On 11th June of this year, Malta narrowly avoided a national tragedy when Tania Flats was evacuated hours before it crumbled into rubble. This succeeded two police reports and one BCA report in the days leading up to the collapse.

The first report of this year was filed on Monday 9th June by Mintoff where he warned that the pressure on the building may lead to a complete collapse, especially since the adjacent building – which seemed to have been supporting the block of apartments – was demolished months earlier.

Responding to questions sent by Lovin Malta, Excel Trading Ltd – the developers of the adjacent site – said they were not informed of any structural issues within Tania Flats neither did they know of Wallace Farrugia’s position as both director and architect of the company. At the time of the 2020 report, Excel Trading was not yet the owner of the site.

“Excel was never informed of this report or any other discussions about the stability of Tania Flats before demolition. It was also never informed that one of the architects involved in Tania Flats was also a director of High Point which own parts of the building,” a spokesperson told the newsroom.

Excel Finance PLC is affiliated to the company Excel Trading Ltd and is part-owned by Gozitan development giant Joseph Portelli.

Lovin Malta has sent questions both to the BCA and current Police Commissioner Angelo Gafa – who came into the post a month after the report – and the newsroom is currently awaiting a response.

UPDATE:

The BCA replied to Lovin Malta’s questions saying it is more appropriate to allow the ongoing investigation, being conducted by independent professionals, to take its course.

This is the full response:

“As you may be aware, the Authority has appointed two independent Periti to lead the investigation, with the BCA providing its full support and assistance.

The independent professionals are taking into account all information submitted to them, including from third parties and all those that have information that could be of value to the investigation. This will help ensure a holistic and comprehensive understanding of the situation, rather than an assessment based solely on a single occurrence or communication.”

This is a developing story.