Recently, there has been a lot of focus on the Planning Authority’s Executive Chairman, Johann Buttigieg, over his chats with Yorgen Fenech involving insider trading, corruption and bribery. NGOs and the general public are demanding Johann Buttigieg’s resignation over his illicit conversations with Yorgen Fenech while serving as Planning Authority Chairman.
Johann Buttigieg lied about his chats with Yorgen Fenech, but he is also lying about the true extent of his relationship with Yorgen Fenech, given that it was already revealed that Yorgen Fenech even dined at Johann Buttigieg’s house.
However, Johann Buttigieg’s corruption has not been exclusive to Yorgen Fenech. Apart from overseeing Malta’s jungle-rules construction boom, Johann Buttigieg built strong friendships through many potential corrupt deals during his time at the Planning Authority.
One significant and very overlooked case is Johann Buttigieg’s relationship with the property developer and Joseph Portelli associate, Adrian Buttigieg. Johann Buttigieg has been suspected of having an extensive history of corruption with Adrian Buttigieg because he has been, single-handedly, crucial for Adrian Buttigieg’s accumulation of wealth.
The relationship between Johann Buttigieg and Adrian Buttigieg had first raised serious conflict-of-interest concerns in 2011. At the time, Johann Buttigieg was the MEPA case officer assigned to assess the planning application for the Malta National Aquarium project, which was being developed by Marine Aquatic Limited, a company owned by Adrian Buttigieg. Johann Buttigieg ultimately recommended that the project be granted a permit. However, his direct superior at the time, architect Michelle Piccinino, later confirmed that she had not been informed of any potential conflict of interest, despite Adrian Buttigieg being a close friend of Johann Buttigieg, the godfather of one of his children, and a business partner of Johann’s wife, Lorraine Buttigieg. Johann Buttigieg later disputed that this constituted a conflict, arguing that Adrian Buttigieg was not a shareholder in the aquarium project at the time and therefore did not directly stand to benefit from the application.
Since then, Johann Buttigieg’s friendship with Adrian Buttigieg has only strengthened. They travel together occasionally and even go out together on a weekly basis on his €6 million Riva 90 Argo boat, which he berths at Gżira’s yacht marina, where the Prime Minister also berths his boat in Malta.
Adrian Buttigieg has been making a killing thanks to the approval of Johann Buttigieg’s application, not only because the land for the aquarium has been granted for free by the government with a fifty-year lease, it is also because the aquarium was granted with a beach concession where Adrian Buttigieg has Café del Mar lido – this is where he has been making his money from the EU publicly-funded project.
Yet, despite Johann Buttigieg’s controversial involvement in one of GonziPN’s rent-seeking projects, he was appointed by Joseph Muscat as Executive Chairman of the Planning Authority — or rather, Joseph Muscat appointed him because it was blatantly clear that Johann Buttigieg was so crooked.
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