The Police Minister needs to speak up: did he really have Eur2 million ‘invested’ with Ryan Schembri?
The word is now so persistent, and among the sort of people who do not repeat rumours lightly or invent them, that it can no longer be ignored.
I do not repeat rumours or even believe them. So many awful, untrue and damaging things have been said about me with total conviction, and believed even by those who should know better, that I will never make that mistake myself.
But this has now gone beyond a joke. Immediately the news broke that Ryan Schembri had absconded, Mallia’s name was already in the mix. I dismissed it on the grounds that people will say anything and he is an obvious target because of his Paceville underworld connections.
But now it has reached the stage where even a couple of people from the warranted professions have contacted me about it.
I can’t help thinking that all these stories are going to dovetail sooner or later – the Paceville underworld, the drugs, the sex, the lap-dancers, the corrupt elements of the police force, the dealing, the cash, the power networks, Ryan Schembri, the massive amounts of undeclared money which he ‘invested’ for people who now have no choice but to stay silent, the supermarket business as a front for something else which collapsed when whatever else it was collapsed, the diesel smuggling between Malta and Libya, that man Darren who was blown up by a car bomb some months ago while driving, all those drug dealers being systematically picked off by professional hitmen in the space of a couple of years recently, my ex-neighbour Terence Gialanze (a 23-year-old renting a villa with his spare cash, and drug-dealing from it all night) suddenly vanishing without trace….Do we even realise that many of these cannot possibly be disparate and random occurrences?
Are our minds collectively shrinking away from the horrible implications of what we are dealing with here, in an island with a population the size of a small town in Europe?
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Jigifieri kellu 500,000 taht is-saqqu u zewg miljuni fuq l-idejn?
Puts the Eur 500,000 under the mattress in a new light.
The media never investigated that story enough.
One of the most puzzling aspects of that story is why Mallia chose to include the cash when he declared his assets.
[Daphne – He was probably planning to invest it, and investments made through cash have a reporting obligation on the financial services companies which deal with them.]
I have a different view. I believe that he had invested the money in a bank between 31 December 2012 and 8 March 2013.
When he became a Minister in March 2013, he realised (at that point or a few weeks/months later) that he would have to declare that money to Parliament.
He would have worked out that if he reports them at 31 December 2013 without reporting them at 31 December 2012, questions will arise as to where he got all that money while he was a Minister, because they would not have been reported at 31 December 2012.
So he was probably advised to report them as cash at 31 December 2012, so as to push the matter into the past, where he can say that he earned them from sale or property or from past earnings.
It was risky both ways, but he chose the least risky option.
It’s not the media which should investigate , it’s the police which should have investigated, especially when he declared to the media that he got the money from the sale of some property , which was never recorded in the public registry.
Has anyone checked how many wing mirrors have been broken on Don Manwel Mallia’s ministerial cars since he became Minister?
The only way to deal with an untrue rumour is to quash it publicly. If you don’t, you’ll be feeding the fire.
It can only be quashed if it’s not true, of course. If it’s true, you just have to grin and bear it.
Little by little, people will discover who actually was part of the corruption so splattered onto the Gonzi administration. Is there one story that does not involve anyone with the Labour Party?
Needless to say, many of the high profile switchers, have done so because they were not being allowed to do whatever they wanted under the previous administration.
If that is the case aren’t you putting yourself at risk, Daphne?
[Daphne – It’s a bit late for that, isn’t it?]
If Mallia doesn’t bother to declare half a million in cash kept at home, why should we worry in asking whether he “invested” money in Mr Schembri’s company?
So did he fail to report that Eur 2 million as “loans to the private economic sector” in his declaration of assets to Parliament?
I wonder what interest income he earned on that?
Add to this the fact that we are talking of a population of around a quarter of a million. Which says that there is disproportionate percentage of corruption by too many people. Where are the honest citizens? They must stand up.
Keep in mind that in this country, returning a bag containing cash to its rightful owner is worthy of nomination for “Gieh ir-Repubblika”.
There are honest people of course but they are usually thought of as “gwejjef” – a compliment-insult combo usually uttered with a wicked smile.
jista xi jghidli kif il PM ghazel lil Mallia bhala ministru tal-pulizija,ta’ l-armata,tas-servizzi sigrieti,tax-xandir u ghal passaporti jiggifieri dan ghandu il kontroll tal-pajjiz f’idejh li lanqas il PM ma ghandu sahha daqsu ghax jekk Mallia jikser il ligi hadd ma jista jiehu passi kontrih ghax min ser jiehu passi kontra il ministru tieghu.