Chairman of the Grand Harbour Regeneration Committee, Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi insists that the Government does not have a contract with CFF Filiberti as claimed by the company.
In comments to this newsroom, Dr Zrinzo Azzopardi said that there was a contract between the Government and a consortium which is formed by a number of Maltese companies, the Italian company CFF Filiberti and the BIB joint venture.
“We do not have a direct contract with Filiberti, and it is unfair that the company owners use the Italian media to claim money which is not theirs.”
He said that the amount mentioned by the Italian hyenas, of €3.5 million is also incorrect.
“We owe circa €500,000 in pending retention money, that cannot be released before all issues are solved.”
Dr Zrinzo Azzopardi did not go into detail on what these issues were but said that there was still some work which needed to be done, plus work that was done badly and needs to be replaced.
Malta’s Parliament and the debts owned by the government were the target of an eight-minute clip shown on Italia Uno’s Le Iene show on Sunday night.
The Italians claim that Malta still owes €3.5 million to Parma company CFF Filiberti, which had won a contract in 2011 to provide services for the Renzo Piano parliament.
The contractor says that the problems with the payments started as soon as Labour was elected to government in 2013. He adds that this situation has brought the company to its knees and it has been unable to pay its wages, apart from losing credibility with the banks. He says that Malta offered to pay up 500,000 euros but this is not acceptable.
It had been reported that an Italian company tasked with installing the stonework at the new Parliament building was risking bankruptcy as it claims that the Maltese government is refusing to pay almost €3 million it is owed.