• Open Malta, a new political data transparency platform by Amphora Media, exposes political social media advertising.
  
• Labour Party, its MPs and MEPs ran 5,626 ads (estimated cost: €500,000)
  
• Nationalist Party, its MPs and MEPs ran 4,364 ads (estimated cost: €415,000)
  
• Social media advertising spikes in election seasons:
  • The 2022 General Election:
    • PL and MPs = 1,402 
    • PN and MPs = 834
    • PL alone = 180
    • PN alone = 158
    • Robert Abela = 148
    • Bernard Grech = 277
  • The 2024 MEP & Local Council Election Year:
    • PL, MEPs, MPs  = 504
    • PN, MEPs, MPs = 340
    • Most Ads: Thomas Bajada (168)
    • Second: David Casa (152)
    • Third: Robert Abela (88)
      

Between 2019 and 2025, the Labour Party, the Nationalist Party, and their elected MPs and MEPs ran at least 9,900 political ads on Facebook and Instagram, according to data compiled by Open Malta, a new political transparency platform.

The figures, drawn from Meta’s Ad Transparency database, come with a caveat: Meta doesn’t publish exact spending, only ranges. At the upper bound, the two parties and their candidates spent up to €1,413,130; the midpoint estimate is €911,167, and the floor is €407,588.

Across every scenario, Labour and its candidates outspent the Nationalists by an average of €85,000. As of 14 May 2026, the Labour Party’s Facebook page has approximately 68,000 followers, while the Nationalist Party’s page has around 46,000.

Those ads landed in a country where the platforms dominate. 

A Broadcasting Authority survey found Facebook is used by 89% of online Maltese, with Instagram a distant second at 49%. A 2023 Eurobarometer survey found 70% of Maltese respondents get their news through social media, climbing to 86% among 15- to 24-year-olds, the highest figure recorded across any age group.

Who runs the most on social media ads?

Across the full dataset, the Labour Party, its MPs and MEPs ran 5,626 ads (at a mid-range cost of €500,000), while its Nationalist Party counterparts ran 4,364 ads (at a mid-range cost of €415,000)

At the party level, the PL’s own page (Partit Laburista) ran 474 ads, more than double the 198 the PN’s page (Partit Nazzjonalista) ran.

Individual leadership pages of Robert Abela, Bernard Grech and others add a significant layer to those figures. 

Since becoming Prime Minister in 2020, Robert Abela’s personal page has run 456 ads, funded by the Labour Party, generating between 20 million and 23.9 million impressions over the years.

A similar pattern holds on the PN across the three leaders Abela has faced since taking office. 

Bernard Grech, who led the party from 3rd October 2020 to 10th September 2025, ran 555 ads on Meta platforms, generating between 16.4 million and 19.7 million impressions in total. From January 2024 onwards, those ads were paid for directly by Grech himself rather than the PN.

His successor, Alex Borg, has run 445 ads. In 2025 alone, the year of his election as party leader, his page ran 288 ads, more than double the 140 that his leadership rival, Adrian Delia, ran. 

Since winning the leadership, Borg has published just two adverts, with Meta’s records indicating both were paid for directly by Borg himself.

Who pays for ads is a different matter. Here, the Labour Party’s Facebook page is the top spender, with 908 ads paid for, followed by Raymon Abela with 686 and the PN with 667.

Elections Drive Political Social Media Ads

2022 General Election:

Election cycles drive significant surges in social media ads. During the 2022 general elections, the PL, PN and respective candidates ran 2,230 ads across the little-over-a-month campaign (20th February 2022 to 26th March),

However, the gap is significant. The PL and its elected candidates ran 1,402 ads, dwarfing the 834 ads run by the PN and its candidates.

At an individual level, party leaders dominated campaign advertising. Bernard Grech’s page carried the most ads at 277, just under double Abela’s 148.

Ray Abela, a PL MP, issued the most ads of any PL candidate, including PM Abela and the Labour Party itself (180), running 216 ads during the election season. 

2024 MEP & Local Council Elections:

2024 was a double election year with both the MEP and Local Council votes taking place.

This campaign was marked by candidates spending more on social media advertising than the parties themselves.

PL MEP Thomas Bajada (168) and PN MEP David Casa (152) ran the most ads during the season, followed by Prime Minister Robert Abela (88) and Owen Bonnici, the Minister for National Heritage, the Arts and Local Government (81).

How we collected the data:

The data was collected from Meta’s Ad Library, its official transparency database for political and issue-based advertising across Facebook and Instagram. Each political page, including those of politicians and political parties, was reviewed. 

Data extraction was carried out using a third-party data collection tool, after which the dataset was manually cleaned and verified. Each entry has a unique AD ID assigned by Meta.

In 2024, following the European Union’s transparency and Targeting of Political Advertising regulation, the company decided to phase out political, electoral, and social-issue ads in the EU in October 2025. The rule does not impact news organisations.

Google made a similar decision, removing the EU from its Google Ads Transparency Centre and from political ad-serving on YouTube.  The archive is inaccessible.

Meta’s ban on political advertising in the EU limits the availability of new political ad data in the region. Concerns remain that some political actors could attempt to evade the rules by misclassifying political advertising or avoiding political labels altogether 

In Malta, 99% of political donation sources go undisclosed. The government regularly awards public contracts without a competitive tender process. Ministers’ asset declarations are being pulled from public view. And the data that does exist sits scattered across disparate government portals, with no single point of accountability.

Open Malta exists to change that.

Built by Amphora Media, Open Malta is a free, public platform that brings Malta’s political finance data into one place, so journalists, researchers, and the taxpaying public can see clearly how money moves through the political system.

In its first version, Open Malta covers political donations, direct orders, campaign expenses, social media spending, and asset declarations. 

It will be continuously updated and expanded with new datasets over time. You can support our work over here.

What’s on the platform?

Open Malta builds on the Integrity Watch platform, originally hosted by the Daphne Caruana Galizia Foundation and developed in collaboration with Transparency International, and refreshes all of that data to the most recent available filings. It also adds two major new datasets.

Direct Orders:

Open Malta provides the first-ever public repository of direct orders, an uncompetitive public procurement mechanism regularly used by the government. 

The current platform carries all direct orders published from 2022 to today. The data from Amphora Media’s full 15-year investigation will be included over the coming weeks.

Search: search by year and by authority. 

Social Media Ads:

A new feature includes political social media advertising by Meta, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp. 

Over 9,900 ads run by Partit Laburista (PL), Partit Nazzjonalista (PN), and their respective candidates over the covered period have been collected.

The figures, drawn from Meta’s Ad Transparency database, come with a caveat: Meta doesn’t publish exact spending, only ranges. At the upper bound, the two parties and their candidates spent up to €1,413,130; the midpoint estimate is €911,167, and the floor is €407,588.

The data was collected from Meta’s archive. Political advertising stopped in October 2025 when Meta banned political advertising across the EU following new EU rules. Google made a similar decision, removing the EU from its Google Ads Transparency Centre and from political ad-serving on YouTube. The dataset will be updated if either platform reverses course.

Search: by party, candidate, year, and election.

Declarations:

MPs’ declared assets, bank and cash deposits, investments, and employment. Sorted by Alphabetical order. 

Political Donations: 

Includes all political party donations submitted to the Electoral Commission from 2016 to 2025. 99% of donation sources are undisclosed. 

You can search by party and by donation band. 

Campaign Expenses:

Per the Electoral Commission, candidate expenses are only published for a two-week window after each election, and the Commission has refused to provide data outside that window. This dataset will be updated following the 2026 general election.

Support our work, be part of our community

Malta’s transparency is shrinking. 

Robert Abela has moved to withhold ministers’ asset declarations from the public after the Commissioner for Standards in Public Life publicly expressed concern about missing declarations.

The vast majority of political donations remain anonymous. And public procurement records are scattered across government datasets, with no one responsible for stitching them together.

Open Malta is our attempt to stitch it together, to give the public a clear, consolidated view of how political money moves in Malta.

We can only do this with your support. Back the project here.

• Three-quarters of Maltese respondents say the government is not doing enough to tackle climate change.
• Environment and climate are regularly among the top 5 concerns for Maltese people and the 4th-highest concern for young people.
• 35% of people in Malta reported exposure to pollution in 2023 — the highest share in the EU.
• Between mid-2023 and mid-2024, Malta recorded the fastest-growing emissions in the EU. Malta has negotiated its 2030 emissions target down to 19% — less than half the EU’s 40% commitment.
• The government has set up the Climate Action Authority, but its impact remains negligible.
• Malta is the highest proportionate spender on fossil fuel subsidies in the EU, projected at €172 million in 2026.
• Effective protection of natural spaces and enforcement of environmental law are lacking.

Do voters actually care about the environment?

Yes – and consistently – if surveys are the measure to go by. EU-wide surveys put the environment and climate change among the top five concerns for Maltese people.

A 2022 Ernst & Young survey of Maltese found that 93% of young people believe the environment is getting worse. Nearly half of millennials and 40% of Gen Z see it as a major challenge. 

But what do people want? More greenery and less traffic, according to a 2024 survey of children and adolescents.

Maltese respondents say they are ready to sacrifice EU competitiveness to fight climate change, and half are ready to pay more for climate-friendly agricultural products. 

In a 2024 survey, when asked about climate adaptation priorities, two in five Maltese called for tree-lined streets or green spaces to cool urban areas. 

Failing to address the environment can have a devastating impact on Malta’s reputation and industries that rely on it. 

“If people come to the island and they think it’s dirty, full of rubbish and so on, they won’t come,” tourism researcher Marie Avellino told Amphora Media in our short-lets investigation.

How much does Malta spend on the environment? 

Before the last general election, the environment held its own dedicated ministerial portfolio. Since 2022, however, it has been folded into Miriam Dalli’s expansive super-ministry covering Energy, Environment, and Public Cleanliness.

The ministry commands one of the largest budgets in government, with projected annual expenditure of €470 million in 2026. 

The Ministry has also been the largest spender on direct orders and has maintained an uncompetitive public procurement system since Robert Abela became Prime Minister in 2020.

The United Equipment Co (UNEC) Ltd, part of Bonnici Group, was the top beneficiary, receiving over €32.2 million in direct orders for power generation, infrastructural works, industrial supplies, equipment procurement and more.

The Ministry’s single largest outlay is the Energy Support Measures – subsidies designed to shield households and businesses from rising global energy prices – projected at €172 million for 2026, following an actual spend of €183 million in 2024. 

In total, energy support measures will cost Malta €968 million by the end of the year.

Actual expenditure for 2022: €234,189,597
Actual expenditure for 2023: €227,178,199 
Actual expenditure for 2024: €183,200,785
Approved estimate for 2025: €152,000,000 
Estimate for 2026: €172,000,000

This is proportionately more than any other EU country spends and is, alone, one of the largest items in the entire government budget. The EU’s Council has urged the government to “wind down” the subsidies.

The second-largest expense is the Solid Waste Management Strategy at roughly €41 million, followed by €23 million allocated to the feed-in tariff, which compensates households for solar energy sold back to the grid.

On the purely environmental side, the largest line item is the Environment and Resources Authority, whose projected 2026 operating budget is €21.8 million – a notable drop from the €24.4 million spent the year before.

Is climate change treated as an emergency?

Officially, yes. Malta’s parliament unanimously declared a climate emergency in 2019. However, actions have been limited to the creation of the Climate Action Authority (CAA) in October 2024.

An Amphora Media fact-check uncovered that the CAA’s claims that “Malta [was] at the forefront of planning for climate change adaptation” lacked substance and were false. 

Despite its booming economy, Malta lags behind most EU countries in key sustainable development metrics. Meanwhile, commitments are unambitious: the EU has committed to a 40% emissions reduction by 2030, but Malta negotiated its commitment down to only 19%. 

Malta was absent from the Transitioning Away from Fossil Fuels conference, where the so-called High Ambition Coalition convened to design measures to address climate change in the absence of UN-level consensus.

Malta is currently ranked 34th out of 63 countries in the Climate Change Performance Index, with the implementation of climate policies rated “poor”. 

Between mid-2023 and mid-2024, Malta recorded the fastest-growing emissions in the EU.  It should be noted that international aviation and maritime transport emissions, important in the Maltese economy, are excluded from calculations.

Flight intensity, cruise liner arrivals, and Malta’s maritime registry – and the pollution that comes with them – have also grown. Malta currently has the largest registry of superyachts in the world and a growing airline registry that includes Ryanair aircraft. Ryanair calls itself “Malta’s No. 1 Airline”.

Meanwhile, an Amphora Media’s investigation revealed that only one in 11 cruise ship calls plugged into shore-to-ship power despite its availability. 

Has Project Green actually greened Malta?

In response to environmental concerns, the government established  Project Green, which aims to protect nature and create accessible green spaces. 

As of October 2024, Project Green said it would be working on 118 projects within different localities. When asked by Amphora Media for a full list in April 2025, Project Green provided a list of 46 projects. 

This year, it has launched public consultation calls for public park works at Manoel Island, Fort Campbell and White Rocks.

Our 2025 analysis showed that a fifth of Project Green’s planning applications included car parks, while a majority of projects fell within the constituencies of Minister Miriam Dalli and Prime Minister Robert Abela.

Beyond that, the Maltese government also diverted nearly 12% of EU Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) funding to Project Green, with no clear benefits to farmers.

Is Malta becoming cleaner?

In 2023, more than a third of people (35%) in Malta reported exposure to pollution, grime, and other environmental problems. This is the highest share in the EU and nearly three times the EU average of 12%. According to the report, high-earning households were more affected than low-earning ones.

Malta still relies heavily on landfilling, while a proposed waste-to-energy incinerator remains what it has been since its announcement in 2017: a proposal. Concerns have also been raised over its potential effectiveness.

In 2024, Circular Economy Malta, a government agency, introduced a scheme to encourage shops to offer discounts or other benefits to users who bring their own containers. The agency claims that this initiative has successfully prevented the use of 63,524 single-use containers – 87% of them were detergent containers. The take-up in other sectors proved lagging.

Is the government protecting nature or hunters?

Hunting and trapping remain a hot-button issue for many Maltese. However, both the PL and the PN have often failed to take action against the practices, amid allegations that they are afraid to take on the 10,000-strong FKNK and risk losing votes.

Malta has been subject to infringement proceedings over bird trapping. Yet the government has regularly changed the rules to ensure that trappers are granted a scientific derogation to continue the practice. 

Our fact-check showed that trapping has not produced scientifically useful research. The government has still issued a €7,500 direct order to FKNK to carry out ‘scientific’ bird ringing (read more about direct orders).

Pledges for constitutional protection – either for hunters or the environment, as the PL and PN have done respectively – are non-enforceable in court, and penalties are mild, despite proposals from both the PN and PL.

Another Amphora Media fact-check showed that the government had not used cultural heritage tools for that purpose. Hobbies such as fireworks, hunting, trapping, and shooting have not been added to Malta’s inventory of intangible heritage.

PL’s 2022 electoral manifesto had something for nature and heritage lovers too: it promised “green networks” for ramblers, hikers and “all those who visit the Maltese countryside.”  It is not clear how a network would be defined.

Amphora Media spoke to Ingram Bondin, the president of Ramblers’ Association of Malta to check up on the status of the network.

“It’s not ready, by any means, and it was a very slow process,” he said, praising Ambjent Malta for maintaining existing trails but pointing out that there is no network to speak of.

“[To move forward] you have to identify the sites that you really want the public to visit, and you have to break some eggs. For example, we have very beautiful sites that are becoming inaccessible as large landowners buy up everything. So if you want to give the public access to some of the most beautiful sites in Malta, you will have to challenge this.”

Bondin says that there is a lot of appetite for walkable spaces as people want “to relieve themselves from the construction, and the general chaotic environment of the towns”.

Are Malta’s seas ignored in the environmental conversation?

The sea is arguably Malta’s only wilderness. The EU’s Biodiversity Strategy sets a target of protecting 30% of the EU’s seas, and members of Malta’s government say the country is protecting about a third of its waters. Does it mean that the target has been achieved?

Our fact-check showed that this was another misleading claim. 

Malta has indeed designated marine Natura 2000 sites. These are not nature reserves – human activities such as fishing and tourism are allowed, as long as protected species remain in good condition. But Malta has a vast marine territory, of which it protects only under 10%. 

Even some protected areas are criss-crossed by heavy vessel traffic, alongside pressures from fishing, pollution and water sports.

Manoel Island: was the promise fulfilled?

Malta’s government has re-acquired Manoel Island from MIDI in a €47.3 million deal, ahead of a €50 million bond repayment deadline in July 2026.

It was seen as a major win for activists, after a long-standing complaint seeking to rescind Manoel Island from the MIDI concession due to numerous breaches. 

MIDI had claimed to have lost 10 years due to archaeological excavations on the two sites included in the concession, including when cemeteries were found. However, Amphora Media’s fact-check showed that the delays were not entirely outside MIDI’s control.

The deal has come at a hefty price, paid for with taxpayers’ money.

Project Green has since launched a call for the public to submit ideas for Manoel Island, alongside two other sites. The page for this consultation is now a dead link, and no summary of responses has been published.

Meanwhile, the Planning Authority’s case officer recommended granting permission to Sharlon Pace on behalf of Gzira United Football Club to sanction illegal padel courts on the island.

What to watch for:

Among Amphora Media’s 16 published fact-checks, five concerned environmental topics. Many propaganda claims continue to circulate, incorrectly claiming that Malta is a “leader” in climate change policy while politicians promise more fossil fuel extraction and processing.

But while many voters may not be thinking about the grand scheme of climate change, there are issues closer to home: polluted air, waste, declining biodiversity and urban heat.

Are political parties going to admit that the current system is not failing to protect nature? Will anyone dare to name the actors accountable for it – developers, environmental crime perpetrators and polluters?

A Time magazine feature. Comino ferry services. Contracts split or priced just cents below the threshold that would trigger further approval. Direct orders published in the first quarter of 2026 show how the government channelled nearly €17 million of taxpayers’ money through this uncompetitive procurement mechanism.

The latest data builds on an Amphora Media database that analyses all direct orders and tenders published between 2010 and 2025. While published in 2026, the most recent batch of direct orders were issued across 2024 and 2025.

The data does not include a reported €120 million negotiated procedure issued to Bonnici Bros for works at Mater Dei, under evaluation as of April.

Large contracts remain the norm

Schembri Barbros Ltd, which has overlapping shareholders with a company that donated to the Labour Party, received the largest single direct order in the latest dataset, receiving a €815,000 contract from Infrastructure Malta for restoration works on a promenade and quay.

In total, Schembri Barbros received over €833,000, while Bitmac Ltd, a company partly owned by Schembri Barbros, received the second-largest direct order, worth almost €669,000, for “Placing of Barriers along Vjal Ragusa”.

Companies owned by Barbros Group received over €2.4 million in direct orders over the 2010-2025 period, previously analysed by Amphora Media, including at least €182,000 under PN.

Schembri Barbros received €336,000, Schembri Concrete Blocks Ltd received over €32,000, and Schembri JV, linked to Barbros Group, received €3.1 million.

Schembri Barbros did not reply to Amphora Media’s questions.

Comino Ferries Co Op Ltd, a cooperative led by Captain Morgan Leisure Limited, received a €138,999.98 direct order from Transport Malta for the “transport of staff to Comino for 7months”.

This contract was just two cents less than the amount that would have required the director’s approval at the Department of Contracts.

Captain Morgan Leisure Limited is owned by Fortina Investments. Amphora Media has reported on prior payments between Fortina’s Edward Zammit Tabona and the former Transport Malta head, James Piscopo, as well as the substantial profit Fortina made from the sale of land acquired through a public concession. 

Transport ministry and Comino Ferries Co-op did not explain how the amount was determined or whether any threshold manipulation occurred to avoid triggering the Department of Contracts’ involvement.

A Time magazine feature on a statement from the MFSA’s chairman also made the cut for direct order spending, costing the authority €39,000.

MFSA’s spokesperson said that “Time was selected based on its international reach, the relevance of the topics discussed, and its alignment with the Authority’s communication objectives. The associated cost was consistent with prevailing market rates”.

Chopping and cropping contracts

In other purchases, contracts were kept small to pass below additional scrutiny thresholds.

The Commission on Gender-based Violence and Domestic Violence (under OPM) issued a direct order of €9,999 to Tallinja Technology Limited for advertising on buses. Just an extra euro would have required approval from a minister, parliamentary secretary or another senior official.

Tallinja Technology and OPM did not reply to questions.

Multiple direct orders to the same contractor under the €10,000 threshold were observed as a pattern across several institutions. OPM issued three direct orders on the same day. The works would have required senior approval if they had been covered by a single direct order.  

Separate direct orders one day apart, under the €10,000 threshold, were also issued by the Ministry for Foreign Affairs and Tourism. The Mediterranean Conference Centre, for which the works were contracted, said that “The orders in question are two separate contracts for the provision of different kinds of professional services”.

The Court Services Agency also issued linked direct orders 15 weeks apart and four direct orders to the same contractor – all under the threshold.

When contacted by Amphora Media, all involved contractors explained that the separate direct orders were for distinct services and that prices were set by the public bodies issuing them.

In an OECD review published in 2023, authorities explained that they resorted to direct orders because vetting of proper tenders was causing delays. OECD did not follow up to see whether its recommendations to improve the public procurement system were implemented.

By law, Malta’s Electoral Commission is an autonomous body. In practice, its members include the sister of a sitting Minister, party activists, and former party presidents – appointed through a process jointly controlled by the two parties it is meant to supervise.

Smaller parties and election observers have criticised the system as exclusionary and lacking true independence.

“The Electoral Commission privileges the two [main] parties,” ADPD Chairperson Sandra Gauci told Amphora Media.

“Unfortunately, the bigger developers dominate the parties. (…) So if you just have an organism like an Electoral Commission, which is just made up of the two parties, there is obviously a big deficiency, right?”Momentum party’s chairperson, Arnold Cassola, explained.

In response to Amphora Media’s questions, the Electoral Commission replied that it is “established in accordance with the Constitution of the Republic of Malta” and “operates in accordance with the Laws of Malta as enacted by Parliament”. In other words, the situation is calcified by legislation.

The Electoral Commission counts votes, publishes election results and campaign expenses, reviews electoral division boundaries, and can initiate suspending an election if it alleges illegal or corrupt practices. The documents in its possession are not subject to the Freedom of Information Act.

Amphora Media analysed the Electoral Commission’s performance over time and its key controversies, speaking to representatives of Malta’s smaller parties to map out the gaps in the country’s democratic process.

“The Partit Nazzjonalista is always open for discussion to enhance our electoral system. This discussion should not be limited to political parties but to wider society in general,” PN’s representative wrote in response.

PN-PL Loyalists Dominate The Electoral Commission

Members of the Electoral Commission are appointed for three years by the President on the advice of the Prime Minister, who consults with the Leader of the Opposition.

Under Malta’s decades-long political duopoly, this effectively means that only the dominant parties can significantly influence the institution’s make-up.

The appointments include Veronique Dalli, the sister ofEnergy Minister Miriam Dalli, and a former legal co-contractor of MP Edward Zammit Lewis. Both Miriam Dalli (Districts 5 and 11) and Zammit Lewis (Districts 8 and 9) contested the 2022 general election.

The current members of the Electoral Commission are:

The Electoral Commission itself does not publish its members’ partisan affiliations.

“The criteria generally used [for the nomination] are to ensure there are individuals with experience in the electoral process and knowledge of electoral law,” PN’s representative commented on the party’s nomination process.

Gauci of ADPD recounts how her party tried to take the Electoral Commission to the Constitutional Court in 2022 over bias towards large parties.

“We’ve lost, we’ve appealed, and we’ve lost again. And to be honest, the reasons given were very – how can I say it – flaky, little to do with what we proposed and what we put forward in front of the magistrate. It’s a system which favours the duopoly, all of it,” she told Amphora Media. The Constitutional Court dismissed the appeal, affirming that constitutional articles are equal and cannot conflict with each other.

International observers noted that Electoral Commission members and delegates are limited to parliamentary parties. 

“The limiting of EC members and delegates to representatives of the parliamentary parties further engrains two-party dominance and excludes smaller parties from the electoral institutions,” OSCE’s Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) said in a report on the 2022 general election.

Drawing and redrawing boundaries: Over 24,000 relocations in districts in 2025

Electoral boundaries are redefined to reflect shifts in population. In 2025, around 24000 voters were relocated, following a proposal by the Electoral Commission that was passed by Parliament (with 41 government MPs in support and 31 opposition MPs opposing the change).

*Gozo and Comino must be treated as a single district and may not be divided irrespective of population size.

The now-approved proposal drew criticism from PN MPs, who claimed that revisions are splitting traditional party strongholds, which could weaken the opposition.

The Opposition did table a counter proposal, written and signed by five electoral commissioners: Melanie Azzopardi, Ian Micallef, Marion Portelli, Victor Scerri, and Angelito Sciberras. 

In it, they criticised many of the proposed changes – and warned against changes to the electoral boundaries that were “superficial and arbitrary”.

“The revision needs to be serious, transparent, and respectful of the importance of the locality cohesion,” the document reads.

“For the Labour Government, the revision of electoral districts is nothing more than a mathematical exercise to reach the required numbers to form a district. […] The spirit of the proposals always put forward by the Partit Nazzjonalista was that there should be as little splitting as possible,” PN’s representative told Amphora Media.

“The Electoral Commission is five against four, so the party in government will decide the boundaries as it suits itself; they make these enormous somersaults just to suit the governing party,” Cassola explained.

Gauci of ADPD said that the district setup is limiting for small parties. It also encourages privileging one’s own district in various domains of power:

“Hiring, direct orders, even skipping the queue when it comes to going to Mater Dei – they manage to privilege these people through being a little bit too cosy with certain ministers. (…) That is something which helps certain people have more privileges than others.”

“We’re living in a society in which the common good isn’t so important. So in a way, you have to bend to appease these people,” she told Amphora Media.

Voter registration and vote counting

Vote counting should be the most straightforward process. For the 2022 general election, the Electoral Commission’s total budget was €6,634,850 – of that, €116,253 was spent on the electronic counting project. 

However, voting eligibility and counting methodologies have not been without controversy either.

Recent controversy concerns voter registrations linked to social housing in  Siggiewi during Roderick Galdes’ tenure as housing minister. In 2024, a series of cases, initiated by the PN and represented by Michael Piccinino, resulted in rulings that several voters had been incorrectly registered at addresses where they did not ordinarily reside.

During this time, Galdes promised upgrades to social housing estates for 500 families. Siggiewi is in the district where Galdes was elected.

The court ordered that corrections be made to register the voters at their ordinary residence. However, the police are yet to take any criminal action.

“The Nationalist Party has won all the appeals, 99 in total, regarding the electoral fraud organised by the Ministry of Roderick Galdes,” PN politician Michael Piccinino, who initiated these cases, wrote on Facebook in reaction.

“Overall, it’s also exposed the Labour Party’s manoeuvring when it comes to trying to take advantage in order to gain electoral gain, even when it’s against the law,” Piccinino commented to Amphora Media. The Labour Party had requested intervention in these cases,  which under Maltese law means a third party, originally not included in the case, can become an extra defendant.

In 2019, the PN alleged that the electronic vote-counting system raised concerns about its reliability, while the Electoral Commission defended its accuracy and integrity. 

“The concerns were raised during the discussions on the introduction of the system. (…) The PN approved the new system only after the necessary changes were made to ensure a fair system,” the PN’s representative explained.

Later, in 2022, PN took the Electoral Commission to court over instances of some prisoners , including those with 10-year or longer sentences, being allowed to vote. The Court rejected the request for lack of jurisdiction, ruling that the law requires such challenges to be made through the Revising Officer before an election to correct the register.

 “We are happy to note that following this court case, the Electoral Commission has taken steps to ensure that cases like this would not be needed in the future,” PN’s representative said.

Vote counting on election days is less than smooth for small parties.

Gauci said that her party had to “fight tooth and nail” to get access to real-time voting counts through the Electoral Commission’s laptops. 

Cassola, too, pointed out that PL and PN members receive voting updates every five minutes, while smaller parties are excluded from the process. When he was running for the European Parliament Elections, he had to learn the interim results from journalists.

This is acknowledged in the ODIHR report on the 2022 elections in Malta. 

“The limited access to the activities of the EC for the public and some contestants, as well as the lack of regulations allowing for citizen and international observation, diminished the transparency of the process,” ODIHR concluded, adding that it had previously issued recommendations on election observation, but they were not adopted.

ODIHR has criticised the lack of transparency in the way this structure makes decisions – minutes and records of decision-making processes, if any, are not published, which is “not in line with international standards”.

Scrutiny of electoral financing

Political parties must submit annual audited accounts to the Electoral Commission and comply with donation and financial disclosure rules.

ODIHR’s recommendations, which included “providing the Electoral Commission with adequate powers and resources to carry out a proactive and efficient supervision, investigation and enforcement of political finance regulations”, have not been implemented.

Momentum party’s founder, Arnold Cassola, says that “PN-PL nominees are supposed to supervise the finances of all parties, but now, for the past seven years, it is a completely abandoned ship.”

He refers to a court case brought by the PN, which argued that the Electoral Commission’s powers to investigate, adjudicate, and fine for breaches violated fair trial rights. The Constitutional Court ruled that the administrative fines were punitive and “criminal” in nature, thus requiring a “court” rather than the Electoral Commission to judge them.

“[The Electoral Commission] is not a fair judge, according to the Constitutional Court. (…) So there’s no control over financing, which is a big joke, because the parties play this game where they have these [donation] marathons, and then in one day they get half a million, and you don’t have to say who gave you the money,” Cassola explained.

In contrast, Cassola recalled how his party treasurer received a call because the Electoral Commission could not find a receipt for a 25-euro donation. 

“I think that was ridiculous, when you have these millions that the PN and especially the Labour Party today are getting from hidden sources, from business people, from developers in particular”.

Gauci of ADPD also feels that the Electoral Commission scrutinises her party more than the larger parties.

“We’re very careful with our accounts. (…) We self-finance our campaign. (…) We don’t accept money from developers because we believe that they are destroying our country,” she said.

“There should be an independent body that supervises elections and that decides who is a party, who is not, and who oversees the finances of the parties, not the Electoral Commission, since it is just made up of two parties,” Cassola argues.

In 2022, Cassola wrote to the Electoral Commission, raising concerns about unequal treatment of smaller parties and independents, calling for equal access to the counting hall, access to information during the count, and improved communication arrangements, including access to facilities such as Wi-Fi. 

He notes that the Electoral Commission addressed the Wi-Fi complaint.

• The PL and PN raised similar totals (€14.9M and €14.8M) but through structurally different opacity patterns: 52% of PL income comes through the unnamed €500–€7,000 bracket, while 48% of PN income comes from anonymous sub-€50 fundraising events.

Since 2016, Malta’s two main political parties have together received €29.7 million in donations. The public can only discover the identity of donors behind less than 1% of it.

An analysis of donation reports submitted by the Labour Party (PL) and Nationalist Party (PN) to the Electoral Commission shows that, of the €29.7 million received since the Political Financing Act took effect, only €256,900 (0.86%) came from named donors.

The Political Financing Act requires parties to file annual donation reports broken into four brackets:

• Donations under €50 collected at fundraising events such as marathons. No donor identities are recorded.
• Individual donations under €500. No donor identities are recorded.
• Individual donations ranging from €500 to €7,000. Donor identities are recorded by the parties but not publicly disclosed.
• Donations over €7,000. Donors are named and publicly listed.

The two parties have raised similar totals. 

The PL has received €14.9 million (through to 2025) and the PN €14.8 million (through to 2024, as it is yet to submit its donation report for 2025). 

The €500- €7,000 bracket, in which donor identities are recorded by the party but not made public, is where most of the opacity lies. 

Together, the two parties have received €13.1 million through this bracket, more than 50 times what they have disclosed in named donations over the same period. More than half of the PL’s income, €7.7 million (52%), comes from the bracket, to the PN’s €5.3 million.

The PL also discloses roughly three times as much in named donations as the PN (€193,000 vs €63,942). The PN, by contrast, draws 48% of its income from sub-€50 “manifestation” donations made during fundraising events, in which no donor identity is collected.

In 2024, Follow the Money’s Transparency Gap project listed Malta as the fourth-least-transparent country in the EU for donation disclosure. France, Belgium and Spain, where disclosure of donors is not allowed, were the only countries that fared worse.

Both parties can also draw revenue from media companies and other business interests, but neither publishes regular audited accounts. Labour’s One and the Nationalist Party’s Media.link have not filed in over 15 years; a separate PL-owned company last published accounts in 1999.

Labour Party

Nationalist Party 

The companies include the media arms of both the Partit Laburista (PL) and the Partit Nazzjonalista (PN).

The PN’s Media.Link Communications Ltd’s last published audited accounts for 2003/2004, roughly 21 years ago. One Productions, owned by the PL, last filed in 2010, 16 years ago. At the time of their filings, the two recorded accumulated losses of €6.9 millionand €2.7 million, respectively.

The most extreme case is the PL’s MLP Holdings, the main shareholder of One, whose last published accounts date back to 1999, 27 years ago.

Malta’s Financing of Political Parties Act requires parties to submit audited annual accounts to the Electoral Commission, but the obligation formally applies only to the party. 

Commercial entities owned or controlled by a party – including their media operations – are regulated under the general company-law regime enforced by the Malta Business Registry. 

The PN:

The Nationalist Party lists two companies in its latest financial statements: Media.Link Communications Co Ltd and Euro Tours Company Ltd, an entity controlled by the party but owned through Media.Link Communications .

Euro Tours’ most recently published audited accounts date back to 2004/2005, filed 16 years ago. They were submitted to the Malta Business Registry in 2010.

When Media.Link last filed audited accounts, accumulated losses stood in excess of around €6.9 million (LM 3 million).

The Nationalist Party’s latest accounts (2024) outline the party’s investments and financial exposures related to Media.Link Communications. While not a full set of accounts for either subsidiary, it provides the following details:

• The PN’s total contribution to Media.Link rose to €18.4 million (up from €17.4 million in 2023);
• In 2024 alone, it provided €1 million (up from 653,199 in 2023);
• The PN also paid loan repayments of €594,000 on behalf of Media.Link;

The PN also obtained a bank loan with repayments of €16,500 per month to restructure the credit facilities previously used by Media.Link.

In response to Amphora Media’s questions, PN’s spokesperson said that the party had nothing to add to what had been publicly stated.

The PL:

The Labour Party, in government since 2013, has a larger portfolio of companies. 

MLP Holdings, the registered shareholder of One Productions and Sound Vision Print, has not published accounts since 2000, with the most recent dating back to 1999.

The latest Labour Party (2024) accounts show that the party’s stated investment in the holding company is minimal, at just €2 in 2024.

On its part, One Productions Ltd’s accounts date back to 2010, filed 14 years ago. Sound Vision Print Ltd’s last published accounts date back to 2010, filed 13 years ago. 

For the 2010 reporting period, One Productions reported a loss of €507,000 and total debt of €2.7 million. Back then, ONE’s auditors warned that the conditions cast “significant doubt” over its ability to continue, although the accounts show that its year-end loss was smaller than €833,000 the previous year.

One Productions is also the majority shareholder of Red Touch Fone Ltd, another company that has not filed accounts in around 14 years (2010).

The only company with relatively recent audited accounts is Orpheum Theatre Ltd, which registered its accounts for 2016, 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021, all logged in the Malta Business Registry on 24th February 2026.

According to the latest accounts published by the Labour Party (2024), the cost incurred by the party on Orpheum Theatre Ltd was almost €2 million in both 2024 and 2023.

In response to Amphora Media’s questions, Malta Business Registry’s CEO, Dr Geraldine A. Spiteri Lucas wrote:

 “Under the Companies Act (Cap. 386), all registered companies are subject to the same statutory filing requirements. In cases of breach, the company is not “allowed” to avoid the responsibility; rather, it has entered a state of default subject to the enforcement mechanisms of the Registry”

“Sanctions are applied uniformly to all defaulting companies, though they are administrative rather than public-facing. Kindly note that the MBR imposes automatic late-filing penalties consisting of an initial flat penalty upon default and daily accumulating penalties.”

By Daiva Repečkaitė, Sabrina Zammit, Evy Coeckelbergs and Julian Bonnici

Over €1.15 billion has been distributed in direct orders under the Abela, Muscat and Gonzi administrations. Under Joseph Muscat, a single ministerial portfolio – Family – awarded €410.5 million in direct orders without a competitive tender. For Robert Abela’s government, the Environment & Energy Ministry has taken over, with €110 million.

A new Amphora Media analysis of all the direct orders & tenders published between 2010 and 2025 reveals that the Family, Health, Environment, Education, and Home Affairs ministries are the most lucrative portfolios for contractors to accumulate millions without a competitive process. 

Top spenders of direct orders according to ministerial portfolios under the last three administrations:

*Gonzi-era figures are based on disclosed amounts for 2011–2013 only; 2010 records largely lacked stated amounts

N.B: In Malta, ministerial portfolios, government agencies and other independent entities change over time– they can be merged and split between government terms as well as during reshuffles.

To address challenges with direct comparison across different administrations, Amphora Media looked at the first keyword in each ministry’s name (like “Transport” or “Justice”) to categorise the “portfolio item”.  We then tracked how much these entities spent on direct orders over time. 

The analysis does not cover portfolios that were merged with larger ministries (for example, when tourism was merged with foreign affairs in 2024).

Which contractors accumulated the largest sums under the different portfolios?

The Family Ministry, under different administrations and iterations, is where some of the eyewatering large direct orders are issued. 

The largest beneficiary during the period was the JCL and MHC Consortium, which received €273.6 million for Management Services of the New Hospital/ Residence. This was the largest single direct order issued over the fifteen-year period.

Another 11 beneficiaries of direct orders in this portfolio made over a million in direct orders over the period:

Care Malta Ltd (almost €61.8 million), Primecare Ltd (€10.1 million), Support Services Ltd (€8.5 million), Caring First Ltd ( €5.8 million), Age Concern Company Ltd ( €5.6 million), Healthmark Care Services Ltd ( €5.1 million), Malta Health Care Caterers (almost €4.8 million), X-Clean Ltd (over €3.6 million), Archdiocese of Malta Homes for the Elderly (€over €2.5 million), Villa San Francesco (nearly €2 million), and Falbra Ltd (€1 million).

The Environment Ministry is also among the highest spenders on direct orders. 

The United Equipment Co (UNEC) Ltd, part of Bonnici Group, was the top beneficiary, receiving over €32.2 million in direct orders for power generation, infrastructural works, industrial supplies, equipment procurement and more. 

More recently, the Shift News revealed that the government issued a €120 million direct order to a consortium led by the Bonnici Brothers.

Bonnici Bros Services was separately awarded early €3.5 million across direct orders for works on a shooting range under the Education, Sport, Youth, Research and Innovation Ministry. 

It was flagged by the National Audit Office for flawed management and weak internal controls,  including deficiencies in documentation and procurement record-keeping.. 

The official explanation was that the shooting range works were fast-tracked to ensure completion in time to host an international sporting event. In response to the unfavourable NAO conclusions, the government insisted it was still “proud” of whoever worked on the project.

Within the Environment Ministry, Ozo Malta received the second most, with €9.6 million in a single direct order for the “supply of administrative/operational services” to Wasteserv.

The Health Ministry is another major distributor of direct orders. Drugsales Ltd was the top beneficiary, with over €23.5 million in direct orders for various medical supplies and equipment.

Technoline, which has been accused of money laundering in connection with the Vitals hospital concession corruption case, is among the top 10 recipients of direct orders from the Health Ministry. Over the period, it received almost €4.7 million in direct orders for various hospital supplies.

The company was acquired by Ivan Vassallo with a loan from Vitals Global Healthcare. Prosecutors allege that Technoline Ltd was fraudulently acquired by Gateway Solutions Ltd using funds linked to the Vitals hospitals concession, allegedly structured through a loan arrangement. 

Investigators alleged that the company was “destined to be owned by former chief of staff Keith Schembri and ex-minister Konrad Mizzi, among others”, according to court reporting. 

In 2024, the court upheld an asset freeze against the company. Technoline received direct orders worth over € 226,000 from the Health Ministry post the asset freeze.

Technoline was also among the top contractors for the Agriculture Ministry, receiving over € 215,000 for animal health supplies. These were issued before the charges. 

In response to the findings, a lawyer representing Technoline wrote asking “to ensure that you differentiate between a direct order sic et simpliciter and a purchase order because of and as a result of, contractual obligations.” Procurement from Technoline was classified as direct orders in the government gazette

“My client is fully operational according to law and is administered by a Court-appointed administrator,” the lawyer representing Technoline explained, adding that the company’s representatives are not “ allowed to reply to any question put to them, which question might somehow directly or indirectly refer to, or be linked with, or referenced to the pending proceedings in Court.”

Beyond Technoline, Smart Care Pinto received more than €22 million in a single direct order for long-term care beds. Infrastructure Malta, a government agency, received direct orders worth over €7.7 million.

In Home Affairs, the largest beneficiary was GO, the telecommunications company.  Gold Guard Security is also among the top providers, with one direct order worth €1.3 million. Amphora Media has previously reported on the concentration of security contracts among several providers, Gold Guard Security being one of them.

The Ministry of Gozo, which added planning to its portfolio in 2024, also issued direct orders in the millions. 

Cassar Fuel was the top beneficiary, with €6.7 million, including a single direct order worth €2.5 million, an extension of a previous marine gas oil supply contract won by tender.

Manoel Island Yacht Yard, which is not part of MIDI’s Manoel Island concession, received €2.26 million for vessel servicing, among other purposes.

In the Transport portfolio, the largest beneficiary was Link-2018 JV (reportedly a consortium between V&C Contractors, Schembri Barbros and Schembri Holdings), which received almost €2.7 million direct order, in addition to the €28 million tender it was awarded.  

Direct orders were also awarded to Enemalta – €3.9 million in total.

The ministries did not comment.

Consultancies & IT Providers

When ranking suppliers by the amount received under each portfolio, the analysis showed that consultants, including IT providers, lawyers and others, were often the largest beneficiaries of direct orders.

Notably, Mifsud Bonnici Advocates made nearly €346,000 in direct orders for legal services between 2016 and 2022. Amphora Media has reported on how Aron Mifsud Bonnici’s tax evasion and money laundering charges were extinguished after he reached an out-of-court settlement under a new legal mechanism, while he continues to face separate charges in connection with the Vitals case

Asked about this, Aron Mifsud Bonnici replied, “My firm was not the authorities’ preferred choice. The longstanding and dominant pattern of direct procurement of legal services by Maltese public entities has always centred on larger, traditional commercial law firms, which have received direct instructions from government consistently across successive administrations — before, during, and after the period your questions reference. My firm’s engagements during that period represented a temporary broadening of the pool of firms instructed, not a displacement of the established pattern.”

“It is the norm, not the exception, for legal work involving specialist expertise or urgency,” he wrote, adding about the Vitals case that “A conflict of interest requires competing interests that compromise the integrity or independence of a decision or of a professional’s conduct. No such competing interests are identified. The question simply juxtaposes two separate and unrelated matters — the Vitals case and direct orders for legal services — and invites the reader to infer a connection. None exists, and none has been established in any forum.”

A breakdown of ministry spend in these areas is below:

• Finance Ministry: FTI Consulting, a US-headquartered company, emerged as the top supplier for the Ministry of Finance, with €3.4 million in direct orders. A direct order of over €2 million was also issued to Oliver Wyman, an American consultancy. Aside from foreign consultancies, the ministry and entities under it spent €1.2 million on Tal-Lira.
  
• Justice Ministry: Directed multi-million sums to Calamatta Cuschieri & Co, a financial advisory (including €3.2 million in a single direct order) and a number of security companies: Signal 8 Security, Kerber Security and G4S Community Services were among the top 20 beneficiaries.
  
• Culture Ministry: with €1.8 million in a single direct order, the top beneficiary was software supplier European Dynamics Consortium, a multinational company.
  
• Economy Ministry:
  • Gauff Consultants received €1.4 million in direct orders;
  • Wyzer Ltd – a software consultancy co-founded by the government’s AI taskforce member Abdalla Kablan, was contracted to provide services to Malta Business Registry for over €1.2 million.
    
• The Office of the Prime Minister: Exigy Ltd was the largest beneficiary, with nearly €1.2 million. Moreover, PTL Ltd received a single direct order worth €557,272.
  
• Agriculture Ministry: Loqus Services was the top beneficiary, receiving €773,135. Separately, Loqus Business Intelligence, not registered as a company on MBR but appearing as the group’s brand, received €137,875. The group provides IT services;
  
• Energy Ministry: This portfolio’s top contractor was Darttek, with €378,704.

• Tourism Ministry: Although most top-20 contractors are corporate, there is one individual name, Marika Micallef. She received a total of €105,000 in direct orders;
  
• Social inclusion/ equality Ministry: In 2021, KPMG received a €138,000 direct order in this policy area; Labour politician and activist Desiree Attard was contracted for over €49,000 via direct order to serve as legal advisor to the Human Rights and Integration Directorate..
  

The Public Works Ministry: Awarded JF Group, which provides staffing with over €128,000 in direct orders received over 2024.

In tendering by portfolio, over three-quarters of tenders are concentrated in the hands of the Department of Contracts, making comparison with the distribution of direct orders difficult. Infrastructure Malta is the runner-up with under 9% of tender volume.

Over the period spanning 2011-2025, construction work benefited from more spending than any other tendering area, with €1.6 billion. It was followed by medical equipment, pharmaceuticals and personal care products (over €724 million) and health and social work services (over €676 million).

The Government and the National Audit Office did not reply to the questions sent.

• Amphora Media analysed every direct order and tender published in the government gazette between 2010 and 2025, covering three administrations and fifteen years of public spending.
  
• Over €1.15 billion was distributed through direct orders — a non-competitive channel reserved by law for emergencies — alongside €5.6 billion awarded through tenders.
  
• Direct-order spending spikes around elections. It peaked at €410 million in 2017 – the year of the snap election, Egrant allegations, and assassination of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia — almost a third of the entire 2011-2025 total.
  
• A single 2017 contract, worth €273.6 million, was awarded to the JCL and MHC Consortium for works at St Vincent de Paul Residence. It is the largest direct order in the dataset and was flagged by the National Audit Office for multiple irregularities.
  
• Companies linked to the Bonnici Brothers — reported beneficiaries of a recent €120 million direct order for Mater Dei works — have won multi-million-euro direct orders across administrations, including €32 million in 2024 alone and a shooting-range contract that the NAO later flagged.

A new analysis by Amphora Media of every direct order and tender between 2011 and 2025 – spanning the administrations of Lawrence Gonzi, Joseph Muscat and Robert Abela – reveals how over €1.15 billion has been distributed through direct orders.

Over the same period, €5.6 billion was awarded through tenders, which are subject to far greater scrutiny and transparency. In 2025 alone, around €494.6 million was spent on tenders.

The figures span three administrations and fifteen years of public spending. Together they reveal a procurement culture in which a mechanism designed for genuine emergencies has become a routine — and largely unscrutinised — channel for distributing public money.

What are direct orders?

Direct orders, also known as direct contracts, are termed as “negotiated procedure without prior publication”. They help authorities react to emergencies, save time and reduce red tape and are permitted only in exceptional circumstances: extreme urgency or technical or artistic reasons making only one operator suitable to supply the goods/ service.

To preserve a degree of public accountability, the law requires every contracting authority to publish a list of direct orders over €5,000.

Direct orders have faced criticism as a non-competitive method for spending taxpayers’ money. The National Audit Office has flagged the considerable use of direct orders and has called for them to be used solely in “exceptional circumstances”.

Still, there is no single repository of direct orders; instead, the government publishes them biannually in the government gazette, a digital repository without a user-friendly search interface. The government rejects requests to provide such information to Parliament. 

Using a large language model developed with NotebookLM*, Amphora Media analysed all the direct orders & tenders issued between 2010 and 2025, to discover how the public procurement mechanism is used and who benefits.  

*Details on our methodology can be found at the bottom of this article.

The Election Effect: Over €600 Million In Direct Orders Issued Around Election Seasons, €410 Million In The 2017 Election Year

One pattern cuts across the administrations: direct order spending rises in and around election years. 

In 2017 – the year of the snap election, the Egrant revelations, and the murder of Daphne Caruana Galizia – direct orders peaked at €410 million, accounting for almost a third of all logged direct-order spending across the entire fifteen-year dataset.

In 2021, the year ahead of the March 2022 general election under Abela, they reached over €87 million, and then around €76 millionin 2023, the year after the vote. 

In 2024 – the last complete year included in this analysis and the year of the MEP & Local Council Elections – the figure was close to €91.2 million.

Direct orders vs Tenders

Direct orders are not the only public procurement channel, and not even the largest. Across the same fifteen years, tenders accounted for €5.6 billion, but are subject to far more scrutiny.

Opentender, a website maintained by a consortium of research institutions, shows that the number of issued tenders peaked in 2025 at 1,210 – twice the 2024 figure and several times above the number recorded during the last years of the pre-2013 PN administration.

Tender activity spiked during the 2017 and 2022 elections, in 2023 and in 2025, averaging more than 1,000 per year, against an overall annual average of 674 (2010-2025).

The total value of tenders peaked in 2024, the year of the European Parliament and local council elections, at over €1 billion. 

The post-election years 2018 and 2023 saw tender values of nearly €550 million and over €724 million, respectively. 

Abela, Muscat, Gonzi: How different administrations dished out direct orders and tenders

Amphora Media’s analysis covered three different administrations: the PN administration under Lawrence Gonzi (Prime Minister 2008-2013; the analysis covers 2010-2013), and the PL administrations under Joseph Muscat (2013-early 2020) and Robert Abela (2020-present). 

It should be noted that data quality across the administrations differed.

Robert Abela (2020-2025*)

*The 2025 figure is mostly incomplete, as part of the direct orders were not published in time for the analysis.

Direct orders under the Abela administration total €391.4 million, an average of more than €65 million per year. 

The peak years include: 2024 (€91.2 million); 2021 (€87 million), the year before the March 2022 general election, and 2023 (€76 million), the year after the election.  In 2022, the year the election was held, the distribution dipped to almost €60 million.

To put this growth in context: almost €9 million was spent on direct orders in 2011. Adjusting for cumulative inflation (29.29%) – that would be roughly €11.5 million in today’s money – well below what the government spent in 2024, some €91.2 million.

Who’s benefited under Abela?

United Equipment Co (UNEC) Ltd, a machinery importer and part of the Bonnici Group, emerged as the largest single recipient of direct orders with €32.1 million. 

More recently, the Shift News revealed that the government issued a €120 million direct order to a consortium led by the Bonnici Brothers. 

The Bonnici Bros Services was also the beneficiary of nearly €3.5 million in direct orders under the Education & Sport Ministry for works on a shooting range. 

The National Audit Office flagged the shooting range project for poor project management, weak internal controls, and verbally authorised contract variations. 

Temping and security staff provider Ozo Malta emerged among the top 5, receiving almost €9.9 million. Amphora Media previously reported on contractors like this and how they have become an embedded feature in public procurements.

Direct orders flow between government entities. Under Abela, Infrastructure Malta collected over €7.7 million in direct orders, and Wasteserv Malta made close to €1.3 million this way.

The government did not respond to the questions sent.

Direct orders under the Abela administration

According to Opentender, the Abela administration has seen the average “Good Procurement Score” decline over the years. 

The supplier awarded the largest amount in tenders was Nexans Norway AS (over €185 million for the manufacturing and installation of a subsea cable). 

It was followed by Support Services Ltd (over €169 million for nursing and residential care), which shares the same ultimate ownership with James Caterers Ltd. The third was Kore Catering JV (over €152 million,  a joint venture between the James Caterers/JCL side and the db Group.

Joseph Muscat (2013- January 2020)

Direct order spending first ballooned under Muscat, totalling €771 million across his tenure (2013-January 2020) – an average of €110 million per year, and a figure no administration has matched yet.

In 2012, the government spent roughly €11.5 million on direct orders. By 2014, the first full year of the Muscat government, direct orders jumped to nearly €37 million.

The number of direct orders peaked at €410 millionin 2017, the year of a contentious election heavily influenced by the Egrant saga.

By far the largest beneficiary was the JCL and MHC Consortium, with €273.6 million awarded in 2017 for works at St Vincent de Paule. This is the single largest direct order in the 2010-2025 dataset.

The National Audit Office flagged the contract for multiple irregularities. The justification for not issuing a tender was that “competition was absent for technical reasons and for reasons of extreme urgency”.

After that, the next five top beneficiaries were Care Malta Ltd (care homes), Lyons Care (also care homes), Drugsales Ltd (importer of pharmaceuticals), Primecare Ltd (care homes), and, separately, Drugsales Ltd – Iklin.

Church entities also received multi-million direct orders during this period: the Archdiocese made over €5.5 million in 2016-2017. 

During this time, ElectroGas Malta Ltd, a consortium comprising SOCAR Trading, Siemens Project Ventures, and GEM Holdings (representing the Gasan Group and Tumas Group won the bid to run Malta’s LNG operations. Under the Muscat administration, Siemens received more than €2.5 million across its branches.

Direct orders under the Muscat administration:

The Good Procurement Score rose towards the end of Muskat’s mandate and was higher than his predecessor’s.

According to Opentender, the largest beneficiary of tenders under Muscat was Excel Sis Enerji Üretim Construction, which received nearly €158 million.  

Founded in 2019, the company was initially embedded in an investment structure involving Maltese holding companies linked to Joseph Portelli, Joseph and Mark Agius, and Daniel Refalo (CTJ Holdings, JOGIUS, and DTX Holdings.”

The runner-up was Link-2018 Joint Venture (an entity that appears to be linked to construction contractors, Asfaltar Group, nearly €82 million) and also a significant beneficiary of direct orders later under Abela (€4.7 million).

The next were the Italian-owned Building Energy Technologies Ltd (over €69 million, awarded in the same roadworks tender as Excel Sis), Kosta Joint Venture (over €53.5 million) and RRMalta JV (linked to Bonnici Group, over €53.5 million) according to Opentender,.

Kosta Joint Venture is led by Polidano Bros. Ltd, and reportedly involves Philip Agius and Sons and Central Asphalt Limited. Josette Schembri, the wife of former PM chief of staff Keith Schembri, is a shareholder in Carmel Limited, the sole shareholder of Central Asphalt.

In response to Amphora Media’s questions, Polidano Group’s representative wrote that “The joint venture was set up in 2012 solely for the purpose of submitting [the Coastal Road, circa €27 million] tender, in line with standard industry practice, and was formalised following the award of the contract.”

“Polidano had no interaction with Ms Josette Schembri; neither did she have any involvement in the management or operations of the joint venture,” the group’s representative added, emphasising full compliance with the regulatory framework and explaining that Central Asphalt was brought in “on the basis of its established track record in road-building works”.

Lawrence Gonzi (2010-2013)

Direct-order data for the Gonzi administration is available in full only for 2011 and 2012.  For 2010, few direct orders were issued, and their amounts were not stated. The largest number of direct orders was issued for the supply of trees. 

According to the disclosed figures, the Gonzi administration was distributing €20.4 million in direct orders over two years.

Palumbo Shipyards was the largest overall recipient of direct orders during 2011-2012, with close to €4 million. Rolls-Royce emerged as the runner-up, with €1.4 million, spread across two years. 

A striking feature of the period is how often direct orders went to foreign suppliers: Isis Innovation in the UK, now Oxford University Innovation (which is Oxford University’s technology transfer company), EBSCO Information Services BV (a provider of research databases), or Elsevier Information Services (an academic publisher and provider of research information and analytics services).

Direct orders under the Gonzi administration

Under Gonzi, the Good Procurement Score remained largely stagnant and below the score obtained under Muscat.

Within the 2009-2012 range of Opentender’s data, the top supplier in tenders was Burmeister & Wain Scandinavian Contractor A/S (nearly €183 million, energy engineers). The runner-up was J V Degremont SA / CCC-CMR (€57 million, sewage treatment works). B.E.V. JV Consortium, composed of Vassallo Builders Group, EFACEC, and BTA International, came third (almost €41.6 million), followed by Polidano Brothers Ltd (over €35.3 million). 

Detailed questions sent by Amphora Media to the Office of the Prime Minister, the  Department of Contracts and relevant ministries had not been replied to by the time of publication.

How did we do this analysis?

A comprehensive database of direct orders does not exist. Amphora Media built one by extracting structured data (awardee, awarding institution, amount and year) from the government gazette PDF files, using a large language model. 

The team manually verified a sample of direct orders and tenders, and corrections were made when discrepancies were detected.

Issues found in the data included: amounts & awardees not stated, figures presented as rates, differing currencies, typos, and spelling variations 

Records with missing amounts, figures presented as rates, or unclear awardees were excluded from the totals. 

The dataset runs until October 2025. The government gazette had by then recorded €4.3 million in direct orders – this is incomplete, the data is currently being published and will be added to the dataset.

The Maltese government has refused to answer almost 900 parliamentary questions on direct orders during the current legislature. Since 2022, it has failed to respond to a single question requesting a breakdown of the often-misused public spending mechanism. 

Direct orders are a non-competitive method for spending taxpayers’ money. The National Audit Office has flagged the extensive use of direct orders and has called for them to be used solely in “exceptional circumstances”. 

There is no official database of direct orders in Malta. Amphora Media will publish a comprehensive breakdown of all direct orders and tenders issued from 2010 to 2025 across the administrations of Lawrence Gonzi, Joseph Muscat and Robert Abela in a new investigation tomorrow. 

Before this current legislature, Ministers regularly provided breakdowns of the direct orders issued under their respective portfolios. However, since 2022, under the premiership of Prime Minister Robert Abela, at least 895 parliamentary questions asking for details on direct orders have been rejected.

A large number have been asked by PN MPs: Jerome Caruana Cilia (826) and Claudette Buttigieg (71). In nearly all the cases, the ministers relied on almost the same wording to justify their refusal: 

“I inform the Hon. Questioner that the Contracting Authority publishes information in the Government Gazette for every procurement carried out for every six-month period, in accordance with Regulation 111(2) of the Public Procurement Regulations.”

“I have been informed that in order to provide the information requested by the Hon. Questioner, the advisory cost is exceeded.”

“When a government chooses silence instead of answering Parliamentary Questions, it undermines public trust and accountability. Refusing to reply to questions on direct orders raises serious concerns about openness and respect for democratic institutions,” Caruana Cilia told Amphora Media. 

What does the law say? 

The rules of parliamentary questions and answers are established under Standing Orders 27, which states that “the proper object of a question shall be to obtain information on a matter of fact within the special cognisance of the member to whom it is addressed.” 

Under the rules, parliamentary questions are inadmissible if they publish a name; are inaccurate; are an attack on the personal character of an individual, among others.

Nowhere in the rules does it say that a question cannot be provided because of advisory costs.

Direct contracts, which are negotiated procedures without prior publication, are permitted under exceptional circumstances. In Malta, it has morphed into a key public spending mechanism. 

By law, all direct orders are published in the Government Gazette to ensure transparency. In reality, the Gazette publishes the data biannually in the government gazette, and has become a cited reason for not answering parliamentary questions.

The government gazette – and the direct orders published within it – is a digital repository of lengthy PDFs, and key data can sometimes be missing. Amphora Media’s upcoming investigation has brought all of that data into one place.

“Public funds are not private resources; they belong to the people and must always be used for the common good. Citizens have a right to know how their money is being spent and what decisions are being taken in their name.” Caruana Cilia said.

“Transparency is not optional; it is the foundation of good governance. If there is nothing to hide, nothing should be withheld.”