The John Dalli connection (you know there has to be one): how Eric Schembri and Alfred Mifsud got into insurance
John Dalli
Eric Schembri
Alfred Mifsud
Back in the early 1990s, when John Dalli was Minister of Economic Affairs and then Finance Minister, he appointed Eric Schembri chairman of the government-owned Mediterranean Insurance Brokers (MIB) and Mediterranean Underwriting Managers (MUM).
Within a couple of years, Finance Minister Dalli and MIB/MUM chairman Schembri decided that both companies should be privatised because it wasn’t profitable for the government to keep them on. Mediterranean Insurance Brokers was sold on, but guess who bought Mediterranean Underwriting Managers?
That’s right, chairman Eric Schembri himself, along with Alfred Mifsud and some input from the Tumas Group. Both Alfred Mifsud and John Dalli worked as consultants for the Tumas Group at various times.
The company’s name was then changed to Allcare Insurance Agency Ltd. When it transformed into an actual insurance company, rather than an insurance agency, in late 2012, the name changed again to Allcare Insurance Ltd.
John Dalli has been a regular visitor at the Allcare/Crystal Finance offices over the years, even when he was EU Commissioner. He preferred to visit after hours when staff had gone home, but was spotted all the same.
His daughter Claire Gauci Borda was appointed to the board of Crystal Finance in January 2013. When Eric Schembri and Alfred Mifsud wanted a risk management/internal audit at Allcare, Claire Gauci Borda did it, despite not being qualified in that specialised field.
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One wonders what David Curmi has to say.
You mean master-switcher, brown-nosed Curmi.
He’s an insurance man, too, isn’t he.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWUfOn8XGQg
Blimey. When I go for a pony, I half expect him to be gazing up at me out of the bowl. The geezer is ubiquitous.
That’s why the Yanks call it a John.
Corruption at its worst. People don’t change.
People don’t change. It’s only money that is changed.
So is Alfred Mifsud actually a prestanome for John Dalli the visceral swine, who hides his money in plain sight? That’s what it’s beginning to look like.
I am not 100% sure but is this the same Eric Schembri who together with another person, had started a white goods company in Qormi in the early 80s? Back in those days the rumours were that the then minister Dalli was somehow involved in this company, whether these rumours were true or false remains to be seen.
[Daphne – That’s right. He used to import washing-machines, fridges and the like and apparently made a few customs officials very happy.]
Well that was another rumour.
My wife makes me very happy too. There are 50 shades of happiness plus some Maltese ones.
Flamingo
John Dalli, in the 80s used to be at Comino in summer along with several other people who’d go there, habitually.
This was before it was taken over by a Maltese company and run like a dump.
I say “other people,” because John Dalli either could not or would not, join the socialising that was normal, easy flowing and good clean fun. He was always alone, unless one made the effort to be decent and go out of one’s way – which meant going up to him for him not to be discomforted, and not just mellow into conversation.
The company there was otherwise just perfect, no loud hamalli spoiling the scene.
John Dalli, and his family were the only ones who went to the beach that everybody else called “the dirty beach.”
He would sit on the sand in a corner of the beach, watching people arriving and departing, watching people. Observing.
His daughters were quite little then. His wife would be there too. They were always on their own. His watching, was a feature.
I often think back to that time and say to myself:
“Kos, the man must have had a well of envy building up inside him to the point of orchestrating all this tahwid.”
Envy is a very ugly thing to harbour.
For such a long, long time.
He was probably waiting for his dope boat to arrive from Sicily.
Min jaf kemm hawwad u dahhal flus fil-but meta biegh il-MidMed Bank.
u l-lottu
U l-airport.
I’ve also heard rumours that back in the early nineties, John Dalli backed some relatives to open a tunnel drilling company in order to win tenders for the St. Venera bypass tunnels.
Daphne, the questions you should be asking are the following.
1. Why the exodus of top management from Allcare? Most of its top talented people have left.
2. How sustainable is Allcare’s pricing policy?
3. What loss did Allcare suffer in its first year of operation?
4. Are they still suffering losses this year?
5. Is the company sufficiently capitalised to cover its risks on the introduction of solvency II on 1.1.2016?
6. What emphasis was placed by the auditors in the 2013 published accounts?
7. How adequately reserved are they?
[Daphne – Points 3, 5 and 7 have been covered extensively in various posts on the subject of Allcare, already. You need to pay more attention.]
The equivalent of a ‘2/10 – see me’ in red ink.
company was called Flamingo