The man in the shadows is definitely not out of the picture
When this website revealed last year that Shiv Nair, the prime minister’s consultant and consultant to Malta Enterprise, is blacklisted by the World Bank, the press confronted Muscat and he 1. denied knowing that Nair is blacklisted, 2. denied having a personal relationship with him (a lie – they were seen at the theatre and out dining together before the general election), and 3. said that in view of this new knowledge, Nair’s services would no longer be used.
Yet Nair’s paw-prints are all over these deals with China. He’ll be making an eye-watering commission on each one (from China). His paw-prints are all over the five-year bilateral agreement that Muscat will sign in China this week, “covering most aspects of the Maltese economy”.
The Chinese press reports that Muscat will be at the Eco Forum Global Annual Conference in Guiyang, the capital of Guizhou Province, this week. It also reports that the only other politicians who will be there are the president of Ethiopia, the president of the Council of States of the Swiss Federal Assembly, Vladimir Putin’s chief of staff, and the deputy prime minister of Vanuatu.
Vanuatu? That’s right, Vanuatu – an island nation in the South Pacific. Odd, isn’t it? Well, not when you go to Shiv Nair’s Linked In profile and read there that he has been a consultant to Vanuatu’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs since last year.
Shiv Nair
22 Comments Comment
Reply to Tabatha White Click here to cancel reply
Malta and Vanuatu. So many things in common.
http://www.radionz.co.nz/international/pacific-news/245250/vanuatu-citizenship-sales-continue
Let’s not forget to add on Mr and Mrs Hills (Patricia Hills, aka Paddy Hills, and her husband Richard Hills, aka Dick Hills) at 135, Holland Park Avenue, London where Shiv Nair’s UK businesses are registered and where he has been present since 1996/7.
Were there hopes under Alfred Sant back then?
Was that why Alfred Sant was prepared to make concessions of property in government possession to these people?
It was a Cabinet decision at that time that Villa Francia was to be handed over to Edward de Bono. The inheritance matter sorted, only the premature end to Sant’s government prevented that happening.
Was all this in preparation?
Er, what actually prevented it was the timely intervention of Richard Cachia Caruana, who relayed some important information to Eddie Fenech Adami, who blocked the handover.
Malta’s stupid libel laws prevent me from being more specific. I don’t particularly relish the dropped bar of soap.
The article linked above actually contains reference to a very important issue which is of great interest to Malta.
“The Chinese embassy in Vanuatu has asked the government in Port Vila to provide the names and passport numbers of Chinese citizens once they have been granted citizenship.
China doesn’t recognise dual citizenship and Chinese people who have obtained Vanuatu citizenship will automatically lose their Chinese citizenship.”
China does not recognise dual citizenship. This means that, according to Chinese law, a Chinese citizen who buys or acquires a foreign citizenship must surrender the Chinese citizenship. This is not something unheard of: the famous Janko Rottmann v Freistaat Bayern case arose because of a similar principle in Austrian law.
It would be interesting for the Maltese media to pick up this matter and investigate how Joseph MOUscat and Manwel Mallia are dealing with this matter when selling EU/Maltese passports to Chinese citizens.
Eric Major, the Managing Director of Henley & Something – the guy who had described ‘astonishingly ground-breaking’ Joseph Muscat as a “visionary” in the Kazakhstan press – had told PBS news that there were like 60 Chinese ‘families’ interested in buying the EU passport from Malta immediately.
I am wondering: has China – or their Ambassador here – asked Joseph MOUscat to give them the names of Chinese citizens who have applied for, or have bought, an EU/Maltese passport via Henley & Something? And if yes, how did MOUscat go about replying to such request?
I think this matter should be raised in a Parliamentary Question: Can the Minister for Police, the Army, Broadcasting, National Security, Catering and National Identity inform the “Highest Instition of the Land” whether China, or any of its Communist Party officers or their representatives, asked the Maltese government to provide details of Chinese citizens who bought, or have shown interest in buying an EU/Maltese passport – knowing that Mr. Eric Major had publicly declared that Chinese nationals were interested to buy such passports for their families?
One would hope that Joseph MOUscat will not be personally delivering a list of Chinese applicants to the Chinese Vice President Li Yuanchao when he meets him in Guiyang at the Eco Forum this week.
If MOUscat/Mallia do not give China a list of Chinese citizens who receive an EU/Maltese passport, wouldn’t MOUscat and Mallia be making new EU/Maltese citizens individuals who are manifestly in breach of the law in their own country and exposing Malta to a diplomatic row with China?
If China did not ask MOUscat/Mallia for a list of Chinese citizens buying the EU/Maltese passports, why did it not do so in the case of Malta but it did so in the case of Vanuatu? Are Chinese citizens applying for the EU/Maltese passport privileged Chinese citizens in the eyes of the Chinese government? Are they connected to the Chinese government?
And if MOUscat/Mallia give China a list of Chinese citizens applying for an EU/Maltese passport, why don’t they give that same list to the Maltese public?
On this matter, MOUscat can run, but he cannot hide.
Don’t know why, but the second paragraph of the quote disappears in a red box in my previous comment.
That part of the quote is key to the whole quote, so I repeat it below:
“China doesn’t recognise dual citizenship and Chinese people who have obtained Vanuatu citizenship will automatically lose their Chinese citizenship.”
That depends on who the Chinese person is.
Economic Hitman
Vanuatu is the offshore centre of choice for Russian money-launderers.
Brava.
“Mr. Nair specializes in developing major infrastructure projects utilizing Chinese EXIM credit.”
http://investing.businessweek.com/research/stocks/private/person.asp?personId=145562659&privcapId=145526058
Is Muscat still looking into “internet claims” about Nair’s black listing?
http://www.independent.com.mt/mobile/2013-10-08/news/government-still-investigating-internet-claims-on-shiv-nair-blacklisting-2834628609/
He might consulted this radio script http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/backgroundbriefing/doing-business-abroad-ethical-dilemmas/3491574#transcript
Or saved himself the trouble by consulting the World Bank itself:
http://web.worldbank.org/external/default/main?pagePK=64148989&piPK=64148984&theSitePK=84266&theSitePK=84266&contentMDK=64069844&querycontentMDK=64069700&sup_name=NAIR&supp_country=
http://www.scribd.com/mobile/doc/173305325
The bad business of doing business with Shiv Nair. His fees are described as “exorbitant”. That means we pay him an exorbitant fee to have Muscat screw us over just as Mintoff did with Gaddafi before him.
“Is Muscat still looking into “internet claims” about Nair’s black listing?”
I am surprised the clowns at the Auberge de Castille have not come out claiming that this was a case of a mistaken identity and that there are two Shiv Nairs.
That is a card Shiv Nair himself played repeatedly, not least with the World Bank. How else do you think he survived so long?
Nair’s friendship with Russia (also represented at China’s Eco Forum) goes back a few years:
http://www.independent.com.mt/mobile/2008-11-16/news/maltese-connection-to-one-billion-russian-omani-pipeline-deal-216071/
Poly Energy, run by China’s military, advised by Shiv Nair, involved in an attempted takeover of oil fields in the Kurdistan region:
http://www.poly.com.cn/en/tabid/470/language/zh-CN/Default.aspx
Poly Energy is, we understand, being advised by Shiv Shankaran Nair, a reclusive Maltese millionaire and deal maker, who has thrived on front ending transactions for Chinese State Companies in Africa. Nair who counts The Barzanis, who run Kurdistan almost as a personal fiefdom, as his personal friends, has been shuttling between Kurdistan, Beijing and Ankara on behalf of his Chinese client, trying to persuade the Kurds to allow a 100 % Chinese takeover of their biggest field.
See more at: http://www.stockopedia.com/content/vallares-and-chinese-in-a-noholds-barred-fight-in-kurdistan-59805/#sthash.lJznJCGd.dpuf
Nair is not delivering Chinese investment to Malta. He is serving up an EU member state to his client, the Chinese Government. Muscat is merely a tool but he thinks he’s in charge.
Who is running Malta?
Not Joseph Muscat.
The ‘pimps, thieves and scoundrels’ currently governing Malta must be a soft touch for an experienced international operator like Shiv Nair. He would have found them as easy to play, and as greedy, as the dictators of Third World countries with whom he is accustomed to dealing.
Shiv Nair will most probably be the guest of honour at the Eco Forum in Guiyang this week.
Did the PM invite the independent press to join him in China?
A visit of this level of importance – the signing of a ground-breaking five year MOU between China and an EU member state – surely merits the attention of all of the local media.
It is also an opportunity to show other EU countries how to deal with China. One of those “Hudu go fikom” moments – or if you prefer that in English: It’s a “Bendover and Take It” moment, as DalliBA John would put it.