Documents for direct orders issued by the Planning Authority to a man involved with the Labour Party’s election campaigns have gone missing, raising concerns among Malta’s Information Data Protection Commissioner and the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation over whether any work was actually conducted for the payment.

On 26th February 2018, Ian Borg, who was then the Minister responsible for the Planning Authority, confirmed that the PA had engaged Nicholas Wright by direct order to provide consultancy services.

Wright was involved in the Labour Party’s 2013 and 2017 general election campaigns.

The direct order was awarded on 23rd November 2013 for €39,000 per year, excluding VAT, over three years.

Following a freedom of information request from the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation in August 2019,  the PA said it had issued two invoices for €9,750 to Wright.

However, most of the documentation was missing with then Executive Chairman Johann Buttigieg saying that the “requested additional information cannot be provided as it could not be found”.

The Foundation then submitted a formal complaint to the Information and Data Protection Commissioner, who could not prove whether the documents were deliberately or accidentally destroyed. The IDPC said it was “worrying” and that it “does not augur well for accountability and transparency”.

The Foundation explained that other government entities, like Finance Ministry, would have copies of the contract, invoices and receipts. The CEO of Identity Malta, Jonathan Cardona, was also copied on the invoices.

An independent data protection lawyer, asked by the Foundation to examine the IDPC decision, said:

“The IDPC doesn’t have the sort of powers that the police do, in the sense that the IDPC alone can’t order a complete forensic search of the Planning Authority’s servers in order to get to the bottom of it, but requires the assistance of the Police Commissioner.”

“The FOI law is based on the fundamental premise that documents are effectively kept and filed. It’s only on that basis that the IDPC can exercise its function. If that principle flies out of the window — as in this case — the IDPC is effectively emasculated.”

The Foundation has now filed a formal complaint with the National Audit Office over the issue.

“The non-availability of documentation raises serious questions about the nature and purpose of his engagement by the Planning Authority, and about the reasons for the absence of documentation covering the use of public funds to engage his services.”

“For a direct order of significant value to an electoral campaign worker of Joseph Muscat’s, there is evidence that the contractor was paid but no evidence that any work was done. This raises the suspicion that a public appointment was used to embezzle funds in return for services to a political campaign,” the Foundation said.