“Mister Konrad” lies to Bentley’s in New Zealand and now he lies to the media and the electorate

The Times of Malta carries a big story today about Konrad Mizzi and the huge sums of money he claimed to own.

Asked by Bentley’s – the chartered accountants in New Zealand who own the Orion Trust – to justify the money that Malta’s Energy Minister planned to push through the bank accounts he was trying to set up in various offshore jurisdictions around the world (he had failed so far because of his PEP status), Karl Cini of Nexia BT replied – deliberately misleadingly – that “Mr Konrad” (not Minister Mizzi, Konrad Mizzi, Mr Mizzi or the Minister for Energy) had set up Pcubed’s “energy and infrastructure practice” for the Europe, Middle East and Africa region and had generated “personal revenue of GBP5 million”, and that “his source of funds come from personal businesses” (sic).

This deliberately and misleadingly creates the impression that the money is “Mister Konrad’s”, most particularly because it is in his ‘source of funds’ declaration to Bentley’s, who accepted it.

“Mister Konrad” and Karl Cini could have used this misleading terminology for one of two reasons.

1. That money does in fact exist, comes from highly illicit sources and is the money which has been looking for a home in a bank account tied to Hearnville Inc, Mizzi’s Panama company, for the last two years and more. Konrad Mizzi, via Karl Cini, is here trying to portray it as coming from licit sources, using Pcubed as a beard. (Of course, by now the newspapers in Malta will have got in touch with Pcubed in England.)

That money is either awaiting collection pending the opening of that bank account, or it has been collected already and is currently sitting in one of the several offshore bank accounts that we know for a fact the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri and corrupt accountant Brian Tonna both have, and which are tied to their numerous offshore companies in the jurisdictions of the British Virgin Islands, Cyprus and Gibraltar.

The offshore banks accepted Schembri in 2011 because he wasn’t immediately identifiable as a PEP. His key presence in the Opposition Labour Party, as the closest aide to the Opposition leader, was below the radar. And Brian Tonna could not be identified as a PEP at all before the Panama Papers outbreak, and so he got his bank accounts tied to his British Virgin Islands company in 2013.

2. Konrad Mizzi, through Karl Cini, is attempting to portray himself as some kind of major business bigshot for whom being Malta’s Energy Minister is just a sideline in his spare time, that his real concern is his major business operations in waste management, used tyres and recycling, so the millions that he expects to pour into his offshore bank account are legal and licit and not, for example, the rancid fruit of a corrupt deal with Baku, Beijing, Dubai, Electrogas Malta Ltd or Silvio Debono of the Seabank.

In the face of all this evidence of highly illicit behaviour, Konrad Mizzi issued a statement early this morning immediately the Times of Malta broke its story. The statement was published instantly by Malta Today, which unlike the Times of Malta and The Malta Independent has not been granted access to the Panama Papers in a formal media partnership with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists.

“Mister Konrad” said in his statement that the Times of Malta misinterpreted the documents – now, where have we heard that one before? – and that he never meant to suggest that the GBP5 million was money that he earned personally. Then it must have sneaked into his source of funds declaration to Mossack Fonseca when he wasn’t looking. Next time, he should have submitted a very early draft to the Prime Minister, who is excellent at checking these things.