Konrad Mizzi is “stellar”, according to Joseph Muscat. Mizzi is the “most competent person”, Muscat told the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Tuesday.
For those who haven’t been living on this planet, hearing Muscat speak of Mizzi in such glittering terms would convince them Mizzi deserves Malta’s highest honour, together with the nation’s eternal gratitude.
The American State Department, however, publicly designated Konrad Mizzi “due to involvement in significant corruption”.
The US State Department took the unprecedented step of banning Labour’s former deputy leader and Joseph Muscat’s star candidate from entering the United States.
They outlined the reasons for the draconian measure. In his official capacity as Energy Minister, Mizzi was “involved in corrupt acts that included using his political influence and official power for his personal benefit”.
“There is credible information that Mizzi was involved in a corrupt scheme that entailed the award of a government contract for the construction of a power plant and related services in exchange for kickbacks and bribes,” the US State Department declared.
That power plant and that minister are the same ones Muscat spent two hours defending before the parliamentary committee.
Mizzi’s actions, according to the US State Department, “undermined the rule of law and the Maltese public’s faith in their government’s democratic institutions and public processes”.
Muscat’s devious performance before the PAC was not only brazen but insolent.
Muscat was allowed to harangue the committee for over 40 minutes. They allowed him to hijack proceedings to further “undermine the Maltese public’s faith” in “public processes”.
The ElectroGas project, according to the US State Department, was a “corrupt scheme”. But Muscat deviously maintained “shortcomings were purely of an administrative nature”.
So who will you believe, Joseph Muscat or the US State Department?
If Mizzi was so amazing, so incredibly gifted, so highly competent, how come the Vitals concession was such a catastrophic failure? Why did the court decide Mizzi’s hospitals’ deal was fraudulent? How come St Luke’s Hospital is still falling apart?
If Mizzi were such a “stellar project manager”, why did the NAO condemn the ElectroGas project repeatedly in its report? That report highlighted “the inconsistent approach adopted by the Evaluation committee” and its “failure to ensure that the selection process was fair and impartial”.
It spoke about substantial revisions during the Request for Proposals, “which effectively shifted risk from the selected bidder to Enemalta and/or government”. That amazing Mizzi shafted the nation in precisely the same way as in the hospitals’ concession.
He shifted all risk onto the Maltese taxpayer and away from his friend Yorgen Fenech. As in the hospitals’ debacle, “a major concern identified by the NAO… related to the lack of appropriate due diligence”. The “stellar” Mizzi hadn’t bothered or willfully overlooked “the financial aspect of the due diligence”.
He did the same with Vitals. The NAO found that Vitals, which Mizzi promised would invest €200 million in our hospitals, were only worth €1,200.
It now turns out Mizzi’s financial due diligence on ElectroGas “was not sufficiently robust and deemed inadequate”. More disturbing was that “verifications relating to fraud, bribery and corruption… did not form part of the due diligence carried out”.
How convenient.
The team leader of the ElectroGas Evaluation Committee was “the managing partner of Nexia BT”, the same company that set up Mizzi’s secret Panama financial structures.
Nexia BT was also the auditor of GEM Holdings Ltd, one of ElectroGas’ main shareholders. When the NAO tried to determine whether Nexia BT were GEM Holdings’ auditors when they chose their own clients as the selected bidder, the MFSA “indicated” that “the information was not available”.
“Of greater concern”, the NAO noted, was that ElectroGas’ financial backing was “€20,000,000 short of the total long-term funding specified”.
“The shortfall in financing should have raised concerns,” the NAO said. But Mizzi, the brilliant project manager, wasn’t bothered about a mere €20 million.
He went on to provide ElectroGas with a government guarantee worth €360 million – to make sure Muscat’s friend Yorgen Fenech got the project.
The “stellar” Mizzi burdened the taxpayer with a potential €360 million bill. He then concealed the obscene guarantee – “the Board decided that no reference was to be made to a possible government guarantee”.
The NAO found that “the guarantee provided by government to ElectroGas Ltd was irregular”.
“The NAO cannot comment on whether a prior agreement had been reached with the Partit Laburista before the general election,” the Auditor General said, since its mandate, as Glenn Bedingfield pointed out during the PAC hearing, does not extend to political parties.
Joseph Muscat is still deviously duping the nation. There was nothing wrong with ElectroGas – just “administrative” issues, he bluffed. And Konrad Mizzi is “stellar”.
Muscat is vile. He knows precisely what Konrad Mizzi has been up to.
He knows why Labour ditched him. He knows that Mizzi, the fantastic project manager, refused to do his duty and testify before the NAO – not only in the hospitals’ investigation but also in the ITS investigation.
And Muscat allowed him to defy the NAO. He let him spit in the face of the nation’s institutions. Mizzi not only arrogantly and repeatedly refused to meet the NAO but failed to maintain critical documentation about ElectroGas, Vitals and DB’s ITS concession. That’s not what a “stellar project manager” does.
That is what a criminal, intent on hiding his crimes, does. And Muscat knows it because he let him do it, or perhaps Mizzi was his pawn.
Muscat was part of a triumvirate of treachery with Mizzi and Keith Schembri. He has a vested interest in defending Mizzi. He publicly humiliates his Party by insisting Mizzi is amazing after Labour kicked Mizzi out.
Was Labour stupid or spiteful when it discarded its “stellar” minister? It was neither. Labour belatedly found the courage to dump Mizzi, that festering sore on the nation’s conscience.
Sadly, it allows Muscat, the other gangrenous appendage, to keep poisoning the Party and the nation with his falsehoods and perversions.
It’s best to bear in mind that anything Muscat says is most likely a lie, he’s a congenital liar always has been. As for Mizzi being “Stellar” I nearly choked my beer, the”Hand of Doom” is more appropriate, everything he touched crumbled or died within months, says a lot for Muscats judgement
The U.S. having been the source of all evil for many labourites since the Mintoff days (subsequently joined by the EU in its unholy alliance), they continue to prefer the fanciful lies spewed by their homegrown visionary genious (just ask him) to any objective facts not transmitted through their trusted grapevine. Accepting that you were successfully duped by ‘one of your own’ also means admitting some serious flaws in the PL machinery, along with your own credulity.
I am shocked how these Parliamentary Committees are hijacked so easily by the Labour ‘minority’.
I am shocked how Joseph Muscat and his corrupt gang, with the complicity of the PL’s ‘not fit and proper representatives’, keeps giving his middle finger to everyone and all the Constitutional Institutions.
I am shocked how the PL expects respect if it is unable to kick Joseph Muscat out of the Party after he poisoned it with his bluff and compulsive lying.
I am shocked but not surprised that the world looks at our country and our people with suspicion and disdain.
Lord Egrant has proved to be a curse on Malta and the intelligence of its people.
May the curse become a mantra.
Why are you shocked? After all he is not called the Artful Dodger of Europe for nothing, being voted the world’s most corrupt person. Unfortunately the Parliamentary Committee is a toothless and a waste of time and money Board.
Change your tactics PN, get your house in order and gear up a notch or two, as otherwise we shall be cursed for the next ten years with a vile and corrupt LP government at the helm.
Thank you Mr Kevin Cassar for always hitting the nail on the head.
The PN members of the PAC should hang their heads in shame. By letting themselves be hustled by a person whose international reputation for corruption precedes him, they showed how truly irrelevant the PN has become. There is literally nothing worth saving in this country and anyone concerned about one’s future would do well to just jump ship and leave permanently.
Malta li tippremja lill-kriminali.
Here is the simple explanation for all the massive corruption and money laundering (for example with the infamous shuttered Pilatus Bank) that Malta is experiencing, by dodging sanctions against the Iranian regime using different laundromats ‘that make your head spin’.
If Joseph Muscat expected Konrad Mizzi to be more transparent ,didn’t occur to him that he wasn’t transparent with his cabinet ministers.
Since Nexia BT was acting from the OPM ,after the 2013 general election, ,one can safely say that the order for the three offshore companies Hearnville, Tillgate and Egrant came from Castille, perhaps using government communications equipment.
…..it is a sorry state of economic play that the lack of a major economic factor being capital was fraudulently omitted from all projects entrusted to Mizzi, Muscat by profession is a an Economist and a Public Policy graduate, in all cases the scenario played endowed the creation of the required capital through post public revenue or billing. From a creditors point of view that strategy is fraudulent in nature and projects in such ways survive only by feeding on corruption… typical case being the Monte Negro wind farms…. Labour will never allow the Muscat entourage in again, since they made too much money to be trusted post their political exit!.
I totally agree with the author, it was a mistake to allow muscat to take over from his entrance.
I thought the most amazing failure of the PN members of the PAC was their inability to nail down Joseph Muscat on the question of the LNG supplies SOCAR obtained and sold to Electrogas. SOCAR — a board member of Electrogas! — purchased LNG at market prices generally from the Shell terminal in the Gulf. Socar then sold it to Electrogas at a fixed price which until about the middle of 2020 was always higher and sometimes very much higher than the market price. Where was that veritable cataract of cash from that deal going? More: SOCAR was just purchasing the gas but Electrogas had to pay for its carriage to the Marsaxlokk Tanker and also pay Customs and Excise for importing LNG. Which is why towards the end of 2017, Konrad Mizzi — that brilliant manager of projects — had to persuade the (soup kitchen?) Cabinet to forget the euro 40 million owed to Customs by Electrogas. There has not been any information about any Customs and Excise debt run up by Electrogas between end 2017 and May 2022 when the original contract expired. Minister Miriam Dalli has refused to provide any information on this point.
But now we hear that Enemalta is paying Electrogas Euro 2 million annually “in excise”!!. The glib Joseph Muscat quickly provided an explanation, one that did not explain anything of course : Electrogas had been on the scene from Day 1 — no calendar date given for Day 1 — and had lent euro 36 million to Enemalta to allow the latter to lower its charges by that promised 25%!! What does ”excise” mean in this case? Those new tariffs came into force on 31March 2014, well before Electrogas was actually awarded the contract. And no mention has ever been made of this euro 36 million loan or gift prior to last Tuesday and no record has been found in any NAO investigation. Surely Muscat should be nailed down on this at the next PAC session.