He was an EU Commissioner at the time – you have to remember that
When John Dalli flew to the Bahamas and back in 48 hours (this is a man of 64, not 24), he was EU Commissioner for Health. EU Commissioners are not allowed to moonlight as consultants.
So even if what Dalli said was true (let’s give him the benefit of the doubt; people leave meetings to fly suddenly to the Bahamas from Cyprus all the time, after receiving phone calls from associates), this is still one hell of a mess.
Just look at his explanation, as reported in Times of Malta:
When asked why he had taken such an arduous trip to the Bahamas – he travelled 16,000 kilometres between July 7 and 9 via Malta and London Heathrow Airport – Mr Dalli said simply that this is how he operated.
“I didn’t even spend time in the Bahamas, I met these people – who needed my advice on setting up the trust – on the plane,” he said, insisting that his advice in this case was given voluntarily.
He said the idea to set up this charitable trust was still ongoing and that there may be developments in the near future. However, he would not disclose who was investing the money or which projects the funds were destined to.
“These are private things, it’s not a matter of governments and that sort of thing,” he said.
———-
What does he mean – he met them on the plane? If he means that he flew with them from Heathrow to the Bahamas, then he might as well have conducted the meeting at Heathrow.
And if means that he never got off the plane when it landed in the Bahamas, and these individuals came onto the plane as it stood on the runway, then we have to ask what sort of people they were, to be permitted to do that.
You cannot enter a plane on the runway unless you’ve bought a ticket for that particular flight and gone through airport clearance, and then you’ll only be allowed on with all the other passengers just before take-off.
So these must have been some pretty important people, to be given special clearance to run about the apron and pop into planes.
And if it was just a face to face on the plane, as he claims, why bother going through that debilitating hell at all, when you can always use Skype?
It’s a rich story.
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The plot thickens.
If they wanted to meet face to face for some advice, why didn’t “these people” go to Cyprus themselves, instead of dragging an EU Commissioner to the other side of the world and away from his EU meeting?
Maybe they would be arrested if they stepped outside of the Bahamas…
Dalli did not transact any business in the Bahamas.
Bill Clinton did not have sex with that woman.
Can you repeat that for the record?
In both cases it was just face to face .
With all those millions in their pockets, chances are that he travelled with them in their private aircraft.
Do you think Gonzi is sitting with head in hands today?
It’s his birthday today
No but Joseph is.
Commissioners work for commission don’t they? Or maybe Dalli got it all wrong.
Could John Dalli’s daughter please install Skype on his computer? Her father’s not getting any younger and this is getting embarrassing.
Meetings at Peppi’s Kiosk tal-Mqaret, on planes, in the Bahamas, where next?
No wonder he is so stressed that he couldn’t fly back to Malta because of psycho-social exposure problems. Or was someone waiting for him in Malta, and he didn’t want to meet them?
Just a silly question really, but if he can afford to pay $8000 a month on a place half way around the world then he must have quite a bit of money.
I know EU Commissioners must make a decent amount, but to be able to spend that type of money means he’s got some other job, doesn’t it?
Does he pay tax on all his income?
Dalli is 64. He was appointed commissioner quite recently and wasn’t there for long. He has amassed an extensive network of business interests over his long years in and out of power. While Minister here, he provided his services through a firm called John Dalli & Associates.
When Dalli was appointed Commissioner he was obliged to divest himself of all his business interests. This he did by registering all of his companies (he owned several) in his daughters’ names. The companies’ registered address remains that of John Dalli’s home in Portomaso
The firm John Dalli and Associates has morphed into an entity called Corporate Group, which lists his daughters as directors and shareholders. Claire Gauci Borda nee Dalli, whose official home address is in Mqabba, was appointed director of Crystal Finance Limited last January.This was after John Dalli resigned from the EU Commission and before Muscat’s electoral win.
Crystal Finace Ltd is owned by Alfred Mifsud, a one-time pretender to the PL party leadership. Joseph Muscat’s first job – indeed, the only one outside the Labour Party, was at Crystal Finance Ltd.
Board appointments are made for several reasons. One of them is to allow one to look after one’s money when it has been invested in or through a company. Yet, no one of Malta’s many reporters has seen fit to ring Claire Gauci Borda and Alfred Mifsud to ask why she was appointed to the board.
This is not a private matter concerning private citizens’ private business. It is a public interest matter. Claire Gauci Borda runs the businesses that are only nominally not her father’s.
If he met them on the plane, why did he rent a villa?
I wouldn’t try to make sense of his story if I were you.
… and why for 3 months?
And if he didn’t spend time in the Bahamas, where did the conversation with the landlord take place?
[Daphne – That was clearly not the only time he went there. He’s using Jesuitical reasoning again: he didn’t get off the plane on that trip. You don’t have much time for chats with a landlord when you are flying from the Mediterranean to the Caribbean and back in 48 hours.]
He visited the Bahamas again in the following months.
To store the one-hundred million in.
It is already enough we had the Swiss Tobacco story, now this is not what we need.
Mr Dalli acted as consultant to a trust in an offshore jurisdiction when he held a position of that status within the EU political structures.
X’battikata ha biex qasam nofs il-globu biex ghamel pjacir.
U kemm kienet importanti din il-mawra fil-Bahamas aktar minn din tal-EU li kienet qed issir f’Cipru?
U kemm hu galantom biex hallas (nassumu) il-fares tal-flights minn butu?
Il-quddiesa li jmiss kantata se jorganizzaha.
Travelled 16,000 kilometres practically non-stop in a confined space.
X’ma jaqbduhx is-psycho-social problems, miskin. Ta’ dik l-eta’!
You might be missing the Occam’s Razor though (very untypical of you).
If what he says is true – that he never left the plane – it only means that the other parties had to be physically present in the Bahamas ASAP.
Maybe he was on the plane to draft the contract(s)/deal(s) en route. Then he would have been able to send the foot soldiers with the signed paperwork so the transactions take place with urgency.
[Daphne – That’s why I asked whether it was a private flight.]
This is from Maltatoday: “When asked by this newspaper whether this private role conflicted with his role as then-Commissioner, Dalli said that his advice on a philanthropic project was not precluded by the Commissioners’ Code of Conduct, the rules that govern EU commissioners.”.
For some reason the interviewer decided to leave it at that and not consult the code which is easily available (http://ec.europa.eu/commission_2010-2014/pdf/code_conduct_en.pdf).
Had he decided to take a look he would have noticed that the first sentence says: “Commissioners may not engage in any other professional activity, whether gainful or not”. Only a narrow exception is made in the case of unpaid courses and communication activities on European integration or the European interest.
So even if Dalli was giving unpaid probono advice to a bona fide charity HE WAS IN BREACH OF THE CODE OF CONDUCT FOR COMMISSIONERS.
Excellent solid point of departure. The EU Briksa.
Will Joseph, and the Commissioner, still attempt to find a way of wriggling out of this inconvenient reasoning though?
It doesn’t sound too ‘positive’ as a perception.
Perhaps we have reached the public perception position where ‘positive’ spin by the press and Government is no longer sufficient, although it certainly appears well oiled.
They can continue trying, but it’s no longer enough. As in a relay race, the slack has changed the dynamics.
Well done Daphne for your consistency and perseverance.
I am thankful to the foreign press with the interest and resources to pursue this story.
Suddenly, our situation seems less isolated.
This looks more like a John Le Carre or Len Deighton thriller. Hawwadni ha nifhmek Gann
You ask: and if it was just a face to face on the plane, as he claims, why bother going through that debilitating hell at all, when you can always use Skype?
Simple – a face to face meeting leaves absolutely no trace of what was communicated. No trace, no proof. (hence Kessler’s famous circumstantial evidence).
Why fly half way around the world and back? This is more difficult to explain however a plausible reason could be that it could easily be put down to an episode of paranoia … a good plea of insanity if things go haywire.
[Daphne – A face to face meeting leaves no trace? Hardly. This whole thing blew up precisely because there was a face to face meeting.]
You’ve got it all WRONG.
John Dalli received an e mail from a Nigerian general who had one hundred million dollars, which he was unable to withdraw from a Bahamas account, to fund a charitable trust.
Dalli decided to give advice to this Nigerian general pro bono, and travelled to the Bahamas to set up this trust, only to realise HE was being conned, and remained on the same aircraft heading back to London.