Tax Commissioner mum on Ivan Portelli investigation

Kevin Schembri Orland Revenue Commissioner Marvin Gaerty has remained silent on the investigation into allegations against tax official Ivan Portelli.

Early last March, The Malta Independent reported that Ivan Portelli, a Director in the Office of the Commissioner for Revenue was still reporting for work despite being under investigation.

Journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia had made a number of allegations in her personal blog against Mr Portelli, including that he went abroad with hotelier and developer Silvio Debono (the man behind the db Group). She had also written that Mr Portelli bought a St Paul’s Bay penthouse and garage in shell form for €300,000, and also bought a luxury Mercedes roadster. Commissioner Gaerty, who is looking into the allegations, had told this newsroom on 11 March that the probe should be concluded within days.

On 11 March, the Commissioner said that Mr Portelli had not been suspended pending the investigation. “As you know we are working ‘gas down’ on this. Obviously, this is an opinion and I always ask for guidance from my Permanent Secretary. Since this should be concluded very soon, I think we would complicate life further by suspending him. Why? He works in human resources. If he was in operations or in investigations then I think it would merit this immediately. But this is something that should be concluded within days and I think a decision will be taken after that. We are not ruling it out, and I asked the Permanent Secretary for guidance as to whether we should suspend him or not, so I have not ruled it out. In the meantime I am gathering everything to see the situation.”

This newsroom has chased Commissioner Gaerty since that day.

On 20 March, the Commissioner told this newsroom that the investigation had not yet been completed. Follow-up questions were sent requesting an update on 6 April. Reminders via email were sent, and calls were also made to his office, however by the time of writing no response has been received and thus questions asked on the current stage of the investigation remain unanswered.