Housing Authority puts 66 lawyers on its books, spends a million on direct orders

The list of lawyers providing services for the Housing Authority mushroomed to 66 over the first half of the year after a bonanza of direct orders. Each lawyer earns up to €10,000 a year, setting the public coffers back €660,000.

The Housing Authority is assigning them to assist the tenants of private properties being challenged before the Rent Regulation Board to either have their rental fees revised or be evicted.

Known as the Pre-95 protected leases scheme, the lawyers’ engagement was necessary following amendments to rental laws that gave property owners the right to have their lease payments increased or their properties returned to them after decades of being bound to outdated contracts.

According to information published in the Government Gazette, all the retainers were given out by direct order.

Although an official call had been made, many of the lawyers were recruited on recommendation and most are connected to the Labour Party or cabinet ministers, including Housing Minister Roderick Galdes.

Balancing things out a little, a few Nationalist-leaning lawyers were also put on the list.

Among the chosen ones are the Prime Minister’s brother-in-law Albert Zerafa, Education Minister Clifton Grima’s sister Charlene Grima and Planning Minister Stefan Zrinzo Azzopardi’s sister Alexia Farrugia Zrinzo.

The list includes several other party loyalists who are concurrently earning salaries from other government positions by being directly employed, sitting on boards or receiving consultancy payments.

These include Matthew Paris, who shares legal practice with former Labour minister Helena Dalli’s son, John Bonello, a former Nationalist official turned Labour after 2013, Diane Galea, who represents Labour on the Electoral Commission, Rachel Powell, a lawyer for Infrastructure Malta and an Ian Borg canvasser, Ingrid Zammit Young and former MP Luciano Busuttil.

They also include Leon Camilleri, who works in the office of Minister Zrinzo Azzopardi’s sister, Andre Borg, who is also the Air Malta board secretary, Carlos Bugeja, who has other consultancies with the government, Alicia Borg, a canvasser for Minister Galdes, and Noel Camilleri, who is on the payroll of a number of other ministries.

Galdes is meanwhile handing out other direct orders to friends, including former Bank of Valletta chairman and Labour’s longtime auditor Deo Scerri, who was given two separate direct orders to provide Galdes with “strategy coordination services” through his company Tad Consultancy Ltd.

Labour pollster Vincent Marmara was given a direct order to “collect data” for the Housing Authority while architect Justin Spiteri, the architect and owner of a block of flats controversially built next to a centuries-old chapel in Manikata, was recruited to “carry out preliminary inspections and a report” for the Housing Authority.

Phelim Cavlan, who was at the OPM under disgraced former Prime Minister Joseph Muscat and was a top official in the Allied Newspapers Group under disgraced managing director Adrian Hillman, is now serving as a “management consultant” for the Housing Authority.