A mystery man who is not to be mentioned by name in Parliament has received nearly £3.3 million for project design and consultancy work for the Government in a total of 14 projects. The figure is ongoing because the projects are ongoing, and although these contracts have been awarded to two companies, namely Gibraltar Land Reclamation Company Limited and Land Projects Consultants Limited, at the very centre of each of these two companies is one man who the Government finds indispensable and is involved in almost every project that moves in Gibraltar.

He has already received thousands, if not millions, for projects he has been involved with as a consultant for the Government and which have been completed already, one being the Leisure Centre where he was also involved in his capacity as developer of the Mid-Town Development which was committed to provide part of the expenditure of the Leisure Centre and a school, something which later did not materialise. He was also engaged by Caruana to oversee the repairs to the Harbour Views Estate even though he had also been involved in the initial development as a partner in Gibraltar Homes, a development which Caruana claimed was a disaster and which included this same mystery man as a major player.

He is referred to as the 11th Minister and is said to be closer to Peter Caruana than even his most intimate associates within Government. Indeed, other Ministers sometimes refer potential developers and contractors to him in order to clear up matters of a Government nature. Senior Civil Servants are known to resent the power he exerts within Government. This mystery man is also a developer in his own right and has been involved in a wide range of projects in Gibraltar with varying partners, thereby receiving his due share of profits from these private developments. When he is not a partner in the development he works for the Government as a sort of overseer to contractors and developers, but whichever way one looks at it he has a finger in every pie courtesy of Peter Caruana and the GSD Government. He is said to be a relative of a Government Minister with a family member also related to Peter Caruana himself.

Presently, his biggest source of income derived from direct Government work is from the £50 million Air Terminal Project from which he has already received £646,808. The payments made to these two companies in which he has an important interest and in which he is the leading light is in two parts, referred to in Parliament as “Composite Formula Payments” and “Account Formula Payments”, one is a direct fee for work done and the other a percentage of the project cost.

The man who shall not be named goes about his business rather unassumingly but is the centre of talk around town for being so well thought of by the Government, for the amount of contracts in which he is engaged by the Government, for the huge amounts he has already derived for this work and for being awarded so many contracts by the GSD Government. Some suggest that being in Peter Caruana’s good book pays, whilst there are others who speculate deeper over the possible reasons for Caruana’s endearment for this mystery man.

Given that he is also involved in the Government rented accommodation development, for which he has received to date a handsome £443,583, he should know a lot about what has happened with BRUESA although he is probably sworn to secrecy and cannot enlighten us over that particular disaster.

Recently this man is said to have carried out a sort of tidying-up exercise in the distribution of his shareholdings in different companies, something every businessman with a wide range of interests is advised to do. We will, for the present not mention the man by name, we will leave it up to the public to conclude who in Gibraltar fits the bill.. As a last hint to the identity of the mystery man we shall say that he has another relative who is a former GSD politician and who used to refer to the GSLP Government owned entities, all above board, as a “web of companies”. He might perhaps like to indulge himself in sorting out this particular web.