A crucial correction to the article ‘John Dalli’s African adventure’ (love the title and the pictures of hands dipping into gold)
The article opens with the lines:
The villa where John Dalli stayed when he visited the Bahamas was leased through a Maltese gold-trading company whose shareholder runs charitable projects in Africa through business ventures.
The information appears to support the explanation given by Mr Dalli that he had travelled to the Bahamas tax haven in July 2012 to discuss a philanthropic project helping African people.
There is a crucial correction – or rather, clarification – to be made to this. The Bahamas villa was NOT leased by a Maltese gold-trading company whose shareholder runs charitable projects in Africa through business ventures.
This is a reference to Martin Zuch, to whom the entire shareholding was transferred by Derrick Germaine (the original shareholder) in May this year, with a retroactive date of 25 December 2012, filed at Companies House on 30 May 2013.
Zuch had absolutely no involvement in Tyre Ltd, the company which leased the villa, at the time the contract for lease was signed and right up until the time Bahamas landlord Barry Connor received full settlement of what was owed to him.
I rang Connor yesterday to ask him specifically whether Martin Zuch had ever been at those meetings in the Bahamas and he said categorically that he had not.
The involvement of Martin Zuch came AFTER those strange meetings in the Bahamas, and by several months at that.
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Besides, there is no evidence that Mr. Zuch was in any way involved in the meetings held at the Bahamas or at 33,000 feet on the Atlantic en route from London to Nassau and back from June to September 2012.
Therefore, Mr. Zuch has nothing to do with the Bahamas trips.
Which means that his name does not need to feature in any “personal explanation” to the Prime Minister about the trips to the Bahamas.
Let’s not be deceived by anyone trying to shift attention from the key issue here.
The pictures, sporting a newspaper in the background, are reminiscent of ransom requests.
Yes, they are reminiscent of ransom requests. I think the intention is to show the news of the day or the newspaper’s date, and hence show the date when the picture was taken.
Isn’t Mark Micallef of The Times aware that a company has a distinct legal personality from that of any of its shareholders?
So it does not matter in any way if a shareholder is involved in charity work. It is the business of the company that matters.
Although I confess that I am not a specialist in this area, but as far I am aware, in Malta, companies are formed within the field of commercial law, and therefore they are not formed to carry out a charity. I do not believe that when the law makers created the veil of limited liability they intended to give this privilege to volunteers to run charities. The veil of limited liability is there to protect shareholders, qua entrepreneurs, from creditors, but not to protect volunteers who may after all turn out to be crooks.
Charities in Malta are normally regulated under the Voluntary Organisations Act, because of their voluntary (unpaid) nature.
Moreover, no one said that Tyre Limited was necessarily the entity which may have been involved in the transfer of any funds through the Bahamas. If a trust was going to be set up in the Bahamas, funds could have flowed directly to that fund from elsewhere. So fat, the facts in hand show that Tyre Limited was merely the company which rented a villa in the Bahamas, but whose business was that of trading in resources.
I long ago learned to be very wary of what is written in The Times of Malta.
Many recall the never-ending string of attacks Minister John Dalli had from the Labour Party leaning media especially Super One radio and TV(The Daewoo scandal, the Mater Dei equipment purchasing scandal, the AMS fictitious factory,and the air tickets scandal); for those who don’t remember or are too young to know these may be compared to the vicious attacks Austin Gatt had in the last five years.
Now can anyone in his right senses imagine Austin Gatt ‘helping’ a Labour-led government, say on transport issues? That’s exactly what we have been witnessing in these past years with John Dalli, Jesmond Mugliett, Franco Debono and JPO helping Joseph Muscat who worked as a journalist with Super One.
These so-called politicians have only two things which bond them, greed for power and money and that they have a common enemy.
Nice try John
It is crystal clear form the evidence which has come to light recently in the press that there is nothing irregular in the Bahamas trip and as happened previously in Malta Mr Dalli is again the victim of a frame-up and a witch hunt.
[Daphne – David, John Dalli was an EU Commissioner at the time. Even if you set aside all suspicions about the real purpose of his visit, leaving an EU meeting to fly to the Bahamas on private business (and lying about it) is not so much a resignation matter as grounds for being sacked immediately. And you have to be very, very gullible indeed not to work out that to take that enormous risk, he didn’t stand to gain – in his mind – a concomitant reward.]
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130706/local/dalli.476870
Why is it John Dalli and not the PM to make the first announcement to the media on this matter? I thought that officially, John Dalli was appointed by the PM, and not the other way round. However, I am of the moral conviction that in substance it could be the other way round.
Since it was the PM who on behalf of the public appointed Mr. Dalli and who was seeking a personal explanation, and since John Dalli went to the PM to give him that explanation, then it follows that it should be the PM to announce that explanation to the media, together with his position about the explanation.
Now it seems that John Dalli has tied up the PM’s hands and the PM can only repeat, or shall I say parrot, what Dalli told the media. Where is the authority and the leadership of the PM in this?
One hopes the PM will not now tell us that he got a personal explanation, but because it is personal it cannot be divulged to the public.
And if the documentation given to the PM was confidential, why was it shown to the PM? Is that why the PM asked for a “personal explanation,” so that they can claim that some documents were seen confidentially? What documents were they?
Why should information about a charity in Africa be confidential to the Prime Minister of Malta?
Who is the real PM of Malta – is it Joseph Muscat, or is it John Dalli?
Do we now have the PM deciding that John Dalli is innocent?
Will the PM pass any information from this meeting to the Commissioner of Police?
Will this meeting and the declarations by the PM be used as a smokescreen so that the Commissioner of Police will not re-open the investigation? If this turns out to be the case, then our only hope to know the truth is with Giovanni Kessler, and do expect more attacks on him in the coming weeks.
Why is it John Dalli and not the PM to make the first announcement to the media on this matter?
Simple, to see what questions will pop up and how Dalli slips out.
He always sends someone else to test the waters.
Now Joseph will read the comments boards and will decide how the people PERCEIVE the whole Dalli Nostra or Nostro Dalli.
I think Joseph will try to alienate us by continuing with his fight against the EU on the boat people coming from Africa, while Dalli is scheming his charity work running in billions of dollars for African people.
On second thoughts Dalli has THE solution for Europe’s illegal migration from Africa, for free.
Dalli should be nominated for the Noble Peace Prize for his charitable work.
Whether John Dalli is innocent or guilty, whether this is a complex cross-border frame-up or just an unfortunate set of uncanny coincidences, and whether or not the Bahamas caper is related to the snus affair, there is only one option: Mr Dalli must resign from his latest government appointment, at least until he has cleared his name.
No self-respecting prime minister would settle for anything less than that.
And yet, according to this article in Times of Malta it’s business as usual for the man appointed to oversee Mater Dei Hospital reform: http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20130706/local/dalli.476870
No word, of course, from the PM. At the risk of stating the obvious, it does make you think that perhaps someone’s got someone by the short and curlies.
I lost half my name when I posted this before…
So if I understand MaltaToday’s reporting correctly, this is what Dalli claims is a philantropic mission to help people in Africa:
“Dalli says the Bahamas was chosen as a base for a network of Christian philanthropists who are seeking billions of dollars in finance to set up farming, mining and energy businesses in Africa, which can be sustainable, develop indigenous communities and give them access to markets.”
http://www.maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/national/Former-commissioner-says-Bahamas-trip-exploited-for-political-hype-20130706
So now it’s billions, is it? I thought he said today that it’s “up to one billion”.
Imagine the size of the commission deals worth billions.
One Sargas powerstation was estimated to cost USD 1 billion. And that was around a year ago.
One of the journalists asked Dalli a question about whether there was a connection between his trips to the Bahamas and Sargas. He laughed it off.
Maltatoday online today “… But today Dalli – who denies the allegation – said that he never set foot in the Bahamas when he flew from Malta by private jet to the Caribbean island, saying he departed on 7 July, carried out talks related to a philanthropic project while on the jet, and then landed in Nassau to catch a plane back to Malta.”
On wonders how come an EU Commissioner interrupts an official dinner, takes a PRIVATE JET and flies all those hours to the Caribbean, and when he lands catches a plane back to Malta .. And for what … To give adivce on how to set up a trust for the people of Africa and discusses this on a JET. How honourable this man is.
[Daphne – When he flew out in July, he didn’t go by private jet, by used scheduled flights. He used a private jet for his September trip.]
Why would one fly to the Caribbean and gets back immediately? It could have been discussed in his EU office.
[Daphne – No, it most definitely could not have been discussed at his EC office. This was not EC business. It should not have been discussed at all. He was an EU Commissioner, a fact everyone seems to miss.]
John Dalli is either a very unforunate man always getting himself into controversy when he’s always innocent as we Maltese say a bezzul or he’s one hell of a good con artist and illusionist.
He’s also not the sharpest knife in the drawer or he’d have seen that the political status he exploited for his own gain could also work against him. The flood of con artists and snake oil merchants must have been overwhelming.
Ah, but the PM is satisfied with Dalli’s explanation..
http://www.independent.com.mt/articles/2013-07-06/news/pm-satisfied-with-dallis-explanation-on-bahamas-trip-2004025345/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=facebook
Good, shall we gather for a mass at the Bahamas to thank the Lord?
Xerraqtni fil-kafe,Cic !
Sorry about that, Gahan.
Praise the Lord, Hallel(in)ujah.
Since Dalli is so willing to do charity with Africa and since he is so chummy with Joseph Muscat, why doesn’t he help with the immigrants coming over……..and fly them to the Bahamas.
“Dalli claims his cabinet were informed of his private trip, but not before it took place, specifically because he erroneously included his Bahamas ticket stub with all his travel receipts for the EC’s verification. Since the private flight could not be refunded, Dalli was handed the stub back.”
Lol so he tried to get a refund too…
http://maltatoday.com.mt/en/newsdetails/news/national/Former-commissioner-says-Bahamas-trip-exploited-for-political-hype-20130706
[Daphne – It wasn’t a private flight. And you don’t get ticket stubs for private flights. Oh, I see what they mean – private business, not a private flight. He took it back when he realised what he had done.]