Brian Tonna told a parliamentary committee assessing the Electrogas deal that he did not carry out due diligence on its offer to build a power station, despite being involved in adjudicating bids for the public contract.
The Nexia BT managing partner was replying to questions by parliament s Public Accounts Committee one week after refusing to answer questions before that same committee, claiming he may be a suspect in ongoing police investigations.
Tonna said his role and that of two other company employees was to “input data” during the fourth stage of the process, a financial evaluation that took several days to complete.
As it happened: Four Nexia BT officials indicted for financial crimes timesofmalta.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from timesofmalta.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Nexia BT managing partner Brian Tonna and three other associates were granted bail on Tuesday by a court hearing criminal charges against them.
Tonna, his fellow Nexia BT partners Karl Cini and Manuel Castagna, and office manager Katrin Bondin Carter face charges of money laundering, forgery and other crimes in relation to inquiries into former OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri. They are all pleading not guilty.
The court’s decision to allow them to walk free while proceedings against them continue means that each of the 11 people arrested and charged in the wide-ranging criminal investigation sparked by the Schembri inquiries has now been granted bail.
In her eight-page decree, quoting local and European case law on the right to information during the criminal justice process, also known in technical jargon as “disclosure”, the magistrate noted that although the law referred to “material evidence”, this was not only evidence that the prosecution was planning to present in court as evidence.
The law, she said, was there to ensure a level playing field between the prosecution and the defence and to safeguard the proper procedure during criminal proceedings. The statement given by Martin to the police, she ruled, was “intrinsically linked” to the criminal case so she ordered the police to share the declaration with the defence.