LEADERSHIP CRISIS: New twist to Konrad Mizzi/Chen Cheng/Brian Tonna corruption scandal

Deep internet searches reveal that Chen Cheng, who as a director of Accenture led negotiations in 2013/2014 with Malta’s Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi on behalf of Shanghai Electric Power, is no longer with the consulting firm. Shanghai Electric Power had retained Accenture to facilitate its entry into the European energy market. The Chinese state power company bought Malta’s Delimara power station and a 33% stake in Enemalta, signing the deal in March 2014 for €320 million.

Last Thursday I revealed that the corrupt accountant Brian Tonna had set up a secret offshore company in the British Virgin Islands for Chen Cheng – Torbridge Services Ltd – at the same time that he set up secret companies in Panama for Konrad Mizzi and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Keith Schembri, another one for himself in the British Virgin Islands, and also restructured Schembri’s already-existing BVI company and those of his business associate Malcolm Scerri and Adrian Hillman, at the time managing director of the publishers of the Times of Malta and The Sunday Times.

Tonna set up the companies for Chen Cheng and Konrad Mizzi when they were engaged in negotiations on the Enemalta/power station deal. Cheng was present at all high-level meetings with the Energy Minister and Enemalta chairman.

Today I can break the news that Cheng has since left Accenture – no information is available on at what point in the last two years this happened – and is now CEO of Shanghai Bao Network Technology Co Ltd. Though it sounds like a technology business, its real business is securing immigration visas for Chinese citizens.

The technology bit is that it does this through an online platform which, it says, “has helped over 200,000 Chinese gain visas to more than 100 countries”. A quarter-century of journalistic instinct tells me that we’re going to find Konrad Mizzi’s estranged wife, Sai Mizzi Liang, and her shell visa office in Shanghai in this mix, and that this is going to explain the Maltese government’s decision to sell visas to Chinese people against a “donation” (the word they used), and also Mrs Mizzi’s otherwise odd presence at the Shanghai event at which Jose Herrera announced this strange initiative.

Last month, Chen Cheng spoke at a conference in Beijing on behalf of his new visa venture , which is how this whole new twist was discovered – through the internet listing for the event. See below.

Cheng Chen, far right, shaking Konrad Mizzi’s hand immediately after the Shanghai Electric Power/Malta government deal was signed in March 2014.