“How did you know Jimmy Magro?” asked Magistrate Ian Farrugia.
The two had been old school friends and had worked together to set up the first committee for consumer protection, Bonello replied. They had since lost contact.
The two men then met at the Pavi cafeteria where Magro told him about his holiday expenses and outstanding tax bills – and asked for a payment of “10,000”, Bonello said.
When Bonello relayed that conversation to his partner on the tender, Disma Attard, the latter flatly refused to “pay for Magro’s holiday”.
Later, Magro turned up at Attard’s place, accompanied by potential bidder Chris Cassar, and “pressured” him to work with Cassar on the tender.
Former Labour Party general secretary Jimmy Magro was in court on Tuesday, pleading not guilty to corruption charges relating to a €250,000 public waste procurement tender issued by the Local Councils Association.
Charges dated back to 2014 when the association sought to embark on a pilot project involving the acquisition of an electromechanical compost machine for the processing of domestic organic waste.
At the time, Magro was special consultant to the association, with a special focus on EU funded projects, also sitting on the board that was to select the winning bidder on the tender.
Yet, after the tender had been awarded in August 2015, to one of two competing bidders, the failed bidder, Victor Bonello, had flagged issues of alleged corruption, telling police and anti-corruption authorities that Magro had passed on details about the tender before it was published and had proposed meeting “to discuss the commercial take into this”.