Dragonara Gaming officials defined government’s arguments for dismissing the board, whose members were in charge of selecting the company that will be allowed to establish a new casino, as “hollow and pathetic”.
As soon as Chris Cardona, the Maltese Minister of Economy, announced the final decision of the authorities for dismissing the board, a report was compiled.
According to it, the dismissal was necessary as there were three conflicts of interest that would potentially lead to serious consequences.
Soon after the dismissal of the board members, Eden Leisure Group got authorities’ permission to run a casino venue regardless of the bid of €1.25 million it placed. In other words, the sum was two times smaller than Dragonara’s offer.
Dragonara’s managers gave a brief announcement, concerning the baffling situation. They said that apparently, all members of the board have been carefully selected because of their reliability and proficiency.
What is more, either the Ministry or the Privatisation Unit had chosen each one of the members. Bearing in mind these facts, Dragonara’s managers added they presume that Maltese authorities would never disregard the importance of choosing skillful and trustworthy board members. That is why Dragonara executives were pretty much disappointed and confused by the decision of Maltese authorities. According to Dragonara managers, it does not make any sense for the Minister to hire board members and then, at a later point to dismiss them himself.
According to the report, Kevin-James Fenech, a director consultant of management-consultancy and business advisory firm, could have been one of the sides, included in the conflict of interest affairs as the firm provides its services to Malta International Airport. According to Maltese authorities, the Bianchi family is a shareholder in Dragonara but it also has some shares in MIA.
However, Dragonara managers disapproved of that decision. According to them, the Bianchi family is in the same situation like all the other shareholders. They even pointed to the fact that the government is one of the shareholders of MIA as well. Therefore, Chris Cardona’s arguments do not hold water.
However, the report contains information about another case of potential conflict of interests. Jesmond Pace, used to be one of the board members of the Lotteries and Gaming Authority back in 2010, which coincides with the year when Dragonara Casino was given a license that expires in 2020.
The names of Roberta Fenech Gauci and Kevin Fenech’s wife were also mentioned in the report.
Dragonara’s officials repeated their standpoint and said that the entire thing with the conflict of interests was a complete “farce”, which just comes to confirm that the evaluation procedure was not entirely transparent and it was used as a tool, intended to lead the whole procedure to its predictable outcome.
