Only five of seventeen visits to China by Konrad Mizzi made public
The revelations in the latest of reports complied by the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU), which were leaked to The Malta Independent, show that former Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi travelled to China seventeen times in the span of two years in the run up of the privatisation of Enemalta. However, an exercise conducted by this newspaper shows that only five visits of the seventeen were made public.
In a report that is not yet concluded the FIAU extracted information from Minister Mizzi’s credit card transactions and found that he travelled to China seventeen times out of public funds. A thorough analysis of DOI’s press releases and reports in the media shows that the public was informed only five times out of these 17, according to information that is in the public domain. The first one was PR1897 issued on 11 September 2013 when Minister Mizzi travelled to China to sign a memorandum of understanding.
The DOI only informed the public of another official visit by Dr Mizzi to China a full year later, on 12 October 2014, when it announced that Minister Mizzi travelled to the country to finalise the share transfer transaction.
The next visit to China intercepted by the media was in January 2015, when the Chinese State press revealed that he was on an official visit there.
In August 2015 an Enemalta board meeting was held in China, which Dr Mizzi attended, but it was only in April 2016 that the Times revealed that it had taken place. Later on, in June 2016, the DOI announced that Minister Mizzi travelled to China for talks with Shanghai Electric.
In its report the FIAU said that, “on the basis of information obtained through Dr Konrad Mizzi’s credit card activity, Dr Mizzi travelled to China 17 times during the period 10/09/2013 to 24/03/2016. It was noted that despite having family in China, he stayed in hotels for at least 16 of these trips.
The FIAU also said in its report that no transactions were noted on Mr Mizzi’s accounts in relation to the purchase of flight tickets. The FIAU said that the volume of trips to China at a time when Malta and China were already signing deals in relation to Enemalta raised suspicion. Attempts to establish the number of times Minister Mizzi travelled to China were also made in Parliament. Despite being asked at least 3 times to list his travels to China Minister Konrad Mizzi avoided answering the question. In fact there are at least 3 Parliamentary Questions on the subject: PQ17565, PQ24004 and PQ17774. The answer to these PQs excluded the travel arrangements of the Minister himself.
In the meantime the FIAU report, extracts of which were leaked to The Malta Independent by a source, also revealed that Konrad Mizzi travelled to Dubai twice on official business. This was confirmed by this newsroom in DOI PR 160260 issued on 9th February 2016 and in PR 162632 issued on 23rd November 2016
The FIAU investigation found that 17 Black is a company registered in Dubai created for the purpose of transferring money to Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri through their respective Panama companies Hearnville and Tillgate. The unit confirmed that money was transferred to 17 Black, whose function was to transfer money to the Panama companies belonging to the Energy Minister at the time as well as the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff on July 23, 2015.
Furthermore, although Dr Mizzi repeatedly claimed that he never gave the go-ahead for the opening of a bank account, the FIAU discovered that he travelled to Dubai for this purpose. Dr Mizzi in fact travelled to Dubai so as to present documentation to the bank in person.
The unit also confirmed attempts to open a bank account when Dr Mizzi granted a power of attorney in which he gave absolute discretionary powers to Karl Cini and Brian Tonna of Nexia BT to carry out any actions necessary with the set up of the Trust structure which included the Panama company and related bank account. This includes the authorisation to sign all the necessary documents.
When replying to questions in front of the PANA committee, Dr Mizzi flatly denied he had authorised his financial advisors to open the bank account. He told MEPs that Nexia did not have any remit to open any bank accounts either for him or for his company.