So why did she vote for the Enemalta deal?

I enjoyed the argument, because for me this is how administrators can get away with blue murder with the court’s blessing.

Yes, it was unethical for the architect to take the commission to develop the plots.

It’s a Cosa Nostra organisation from top to bottom.

I know of a case where falsified contracts were presented as proof of ownership of land. Even the ink looked fresh.

The land was taken from a poor part-time farmer, the sole breadwinner of a family of six with health problems in the family. The greedy guy was shot probably on some other similar shady case.

His lawyer keeps €500,000 cash at home.

Enough said.

“Daphne – That is precisely my point. If you Company Z is prepared to pay 1 million euros, then you want that 1 million euros yourself and what to be certain that you’ve got it. You don’t want to have to content yourself with 800,000 euros and the lingering doubt as to whether another 200,000 euros might have gone.”

No one was prepared to buy the properties for €1 million (Lm 1.2) – after a public call the most advantageous offer was Lm605,000. The estimate by Galea was Lm1.2 but no buyer came with that kind of money only one with Lm800,000.

[Daphne – I can’t believe you’re that naive. You’re just enjoying the argument. You have no idea whether the company which bought it was prepared to pay a million for it because Mannie Galea’s personal interests did not lie with the vendor but with the purchaser. This is what I am trying so hard to make clear to you. When a person brokers a deal for a vendor, his incentive for brokering the best deal FOR THE VENDOR is the commission he receives. In this case, he was not in a position to receive commission from the vendor, which begs the question as to what he might have received from the purchaser. I am not saying that this happened, but that this is the perfect set of circumstances for it to happen.]

It was the best price the market could offer to the owners in the circumstances.

I wouldn’t look back. The architect/administrator could have been given a commission for all I know.

[Daphne – You do realise that that is wrong, I hope. Architects and estate administrators (let alone those who are both) advising on deals on behalf of the estate/vendor are not permitted to accept commission from the purchaser. Do I really have to explain why?]

My doubts are on the three court so called experts who “approved” the sale for Lm200,000 less.

[Daphne – Mine are not. And that is a separate issue. Regardless of the price at which anything is valued, anybody is free to offer more. That is how auctions work, and how the entire real estate business works too. The fact that an auctioneer has valued an antique table at Eur5,000 and somebody paid Eur20,000 for it does not mean the auctioneer is corrupt or uninformed, but only that the purchaser particularly wanted that specific table.]

There is no publicly available information to confirm if Dr. Lukman was a shareholder or director of African Gas Development Corporation Limited – he was listed as a founder.

But last year he was appointed as Chairman of Gasol plc – a company controlled by AGDCL. He had served as an advisor to Gasol’s board some years ago, but had resigned from that role at the time he took on Ministerial responsibilites.

So there is a strong likelihood that he was a shareholder or at least a director of AGDCL, but unless this information is published, we cannot know. The jurisdiction of the Seychelles – where AGDCL is registered – permits companies to be registered without publishing the names of shareholders, directors, and without publishing annual reports.

Which is why journalists from the Maltese independent media should investigate – enquire with government if that’s easier – about who controls AGDCL. It is a public right to know who controls Gasol – indirectly via another company (AGDCL) – from the Seychelles, considering how Gasol is lead developer of the Eur 370 million project at Delimara which involves the mooring of a 130 cubic metres LNG gas tanker in the populated Marsaxlokk Bay and the monopoly over the supply of LNG to Malta’s power stations, including the security of supply.

Offshore companies based in the Seychelles are known to use nominee directors, so it is possible also that Dr. Lukman was, at some point, acting in some nominee capacity for AGDCL – maybe at the time of its registration, or maybe later as well.

This website here claims that Dr. Lukman was shareholder and director in a number of offshore companies – even at the time he was serving as Minister of Nigeria’s government.

http://saharareporters.com/2009/01/23/rilwanu-lukmans-tangled-web

“Rilwanu Lukman’s Tangled Web”

– Saharareporters.com (23 January 2009)

“Although he is the minister of petroleum resources, Rilwanu Lukman is a major shareholder and director of a raft of offshore companies active in the oil and gas sector in Nigeria and the surrounding Gulf of Guinea, our investigations showed…”

Having said this, I do think that the death of Dr. Lukman may have an impact on the Malta project – possibly on its financing – and once again, the independent media should get in contact with Dr. Konrad Mizzi to re-confirm that this leaves “everything on track.”

I will return to this subject in another comment, but for now it suffices if I mention that Gasol has been showing some signs of real action in the past year, since Dr. Lukman became its Chairman. One must not underestimate his contacts and his weight in the oil and gas industry from his previous roles at OPEC and the Nigerian government.

People like Mannie Galea are the quintessential example of what’s wrong with this place.

These people just don’t understand they’re outclassed and will do everything to remain relevant – everything, that is, but work hard to perfect their art, trade, skill or craft.

I can imagine his designs, and how it would be awkward to criticise them lest it sends him spiralling into despair.

Of course he’ll discuss the girna; it’s the only thing he’ll ever expect to verbally crystallise, and that is where girna becomes the national convention, something to propose as spiritual aspiration. Never something to keep and contain as a piece of the past.

Kenneth Zammit Tabona does the same with his watercolours and the baroque, Astrid with society and every billboard ‘witness for Labour’ with their particular misgivings.

What is these people’s portfolio? That’s it, pathetic little repetitive theorems. No future.

The sooner the PN understands this, and the leader has had to sacrifice significant chapters of his life, so he knows exactly what I’m on about, the better.

This place cannot afford their bluff anymore. Nor can the PN compromise if it intends to take us out of this moral holiday.

Ethics, morality, aesthetics, politics, are one.

Imma kif kollha KORROTTI shame on all of you – hlief fklus ma tarawx addio onesta’ trasparenza u meritokrazija. SHAME on you.

http://online.wsj.com/articles/opec-veteran-rilwanu-lukman-dies-1405940730