The investigation revealed omissions in the purchase of Možura wind farm

An audit in the Maltese national energy company Enemalta pointed to serious omissions in the purchase of the Možura wind farm in Montenegro, including a poor assessment of the company from which the project was purchased.
Yesterday, Maltese Energy Minister Miriam Daly submitted the internal audit report to Parliament, which was concluded in 2021, but was marked secret until the “Times of Malta” obtained a copy citing the right of free access to information.
The report states that Enemalta should have implemented more rigorous procedures to identify potential conflicts of interest when purchasing Možura.
Malta Today writes that the state-owned company invested in a wind farm project in Montenegro in 2015, after buying shares from Cifidec, a company based in the Seychelles.
However, a journalistic investigation revealed that 17 Black, the company of Jorgen Fenek, the suspected mastermind behind the murder of journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, profited from the wind farm contract through a business relationship with Cifidex.
Enemalta bought the shares at a much higher premium than what Cifidex paid to take over the project.
The media remind that the Montenegrin government is also investigating the project, and that the audit was carried out by representatives of Mamo TCV.
– The report states that Enemalta should have sought a legal opinion from a reputable law firm confirming whether Cidifex shares can be legally sold without hindrance and detailing Cidifex’s ownership structure. The auditing firm said that Enemalta was not aware of the identity of the beneficial ownership of Cidifex, and therefore may not have known that it would be acquiring an investment from an entity with a beneficial owner who may have been on the board.
The report also states that Enemalta knew that Cidifex was still in the process of taking over the investment.
Among the conclusions, the auditors stated that the internal policies and procedures adopted by Enemalta were not of the highest standard, in part because “some policies and procedures did not formally exist in written form” and there was no formal adherence to any written policies and procedures by employees. companies during the investment process.
– Enemalta was directly responsible for the entire project and therefore it would be good to apply a more rigorous procedure – the report states.
An investigation conducted two years ago by “Times of Malta” and Reuters revealed that Fenek’s company 17 Black made a profit of EUR 4.6 million from the purchase of the Možura wind farm.
The Maltese government announced in November 2015 that it had won the project through Enemalta. The data, however, shows that on December 10th, the original owner, the Spanish firm Fersa, sold a 99% stake in Možura to an intermediary, the Seychelles-registered company Cidifex. Cidifex paid EUR 2.9 million for Možura shares. Two weeks later, he sold shares to Enemalta – for EUR 10.3 million.
Cidifex bought shares in the wind farm with three million euros borrowed from the company 17 Black. After Cidifex sold the shares to Enemalta, the off/shore company repaid three million euros to the company 17 Black, plus an additional 4.6 million euros of “profit share”.
The Možura project is mentioned in the research on corruption in Malta by local journalist Daphne Kauran Galicija, who was killed in a car bomb explosion in October 2017.
The Možura wind farm near Ulcinj, worth around EUR 90 million, was put into operation in mid-November 2019. It consists of 23 windmills, and annually produces about 120 GWH of energy. As it was announced at the time, the investment was realized by the Maltese state company Enemalta and the company Malta Montenegro Wind Park, and the main contractor was the Chinese company Shanghai Electric Power.
According to the land lease agreement, the wind power plant should become the permanent property of the state of Montenegro in 2035.

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