This is all getting way too cosy
Businessman Silvio Scerri (left), Manuel Mallia’s head of secretariat
In a previous post I told how the National Security minister’s twin sons are dropped off at St Edward’s College by his head of secretariat, in a chauffeur-driven BMW with ZER 088 plates.
With a number-plate like that, it can’t be a government car. And in fact, it is not. Zero 88 is a British manufacturer of lighting equipment for the entertainment industry.
Minister Mallia’s head of secretariat is the businessman Silvio Scerri, who has extensive interests in the supply of lighting and sound equipment to the entertainment industry, conferences and similar. So one imagines that this is his private car.
So now we need to know: is he leasing his own car to the government, while carrying on using it as normal? Why does the head of secretariat have a chauffeur? Who is paying the chauffeur? If this is his company driver, what is he doing, mixing the boundaries between company business and government business?
Yes, a businessman should not be a minister’s head of secretariat, but this is what happens when the prime minister himself has led by example in this regard, with one of Malta’s most extensively networked businessmen, Keith Schembri (KASCO) as his head of secretariat.
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This begs the PQ – Who is using their own private car for public service and pocketing the allowance? Question should ask for full details of course.
This is a different topic altogether.
Will George Vella be more specific and give us more details about this administration’s foreign policy? What’s happening exactly?
This week we were told that Joseph Muscat will be visiting Israel by the end of this year.
Today we have the Palestinians in Malta and it seems that they came here just to say thank you. They have also invited Muscat to visit.
A slot in October was quickly found for such a visit.
Press releases should contain more details.
Keith Allen Schembri of Kasco Holdings has not divested himself of any of his business interests. His father, Alfio Schembri, is the nominal director.
Are the accounts now up to date? Prior to the election they were still at the 2008 position.
Just for the record, Silvio’s own son attends St. Edward’s College and I can confirm that since March he’s been dropping him off at school not in his Landrover but in a chauffeured rented car. I don’t know whether he’s changed cars lately but they’re still being driven every morning to school.
Zero 088 is his personal car named after a company supplying electrical goods. Nexos, Silvio Scerri’s company, are their representatives in MALTA.
Can’t say the businessmen are the only choices that leave one gobsmacked.
Evarist’s new man was apparently a senior civil servant under the PN too and may just end up a permanent secretary soon – the lines are totally blurred it seems.
Wasn’t Mr Scerri one of Ugo Mifsud Bonnici’s followers in the 80s?
And was also employed at Mr John Dalli’s ministry prior to the 1996 election .
YES. He was part of the then Minister of Education’s secretariat.
Silvio Scerri is another switcher. He must have forgotten his PN roots in the 80s, being a member of the MZPN Bormla, working in Ugo Mifsud Bonnici’s ministry. He got into business thanks to the opportunities of free market under a PN administration, but he still somehow bore a grudge
One of the reasons why he had accompanied Minister Mallia in Malmo to see the stage lighting equipment.
Issa fil-festi ta l-Indipendenza nqabdu lilu jarma d-dwal.
Is Silvio Scerri from Gzira?
Absolutely amazing. The candy-grabbers are everywhere. Here we have a 100-day-old government that is about to self-destruct through greed and revenge.
So sad, but so predictable.
Mr. Kasco he uses an Audi Q5 4×4 SUV, number plate EQZ 297, gold rust colour – his own, no doubt, for which he receives an allowance unless he does as his boss does and leases it to the government for his own use.
He parks it in the second slot at the OPM parking area in front of the Stock Exchange.
It’s not only at the top level that these things are happening.
Almost every morning since March, I have seen a civil servant at the Capital Transfer Duty department of the Inland Revenue, who stops with his car in Merchant Street, goes inside and comes out after a few seconds and drives off with, I presume, his wife and son.
Then he drops his wife at her place of work in Valletta and proceeds out of Valletta with his son.
I have no idea if he returns to work later in the day but I seriously doubt it.
How funny – saw him yesterday after reading this article, parked at Zejtun (road leading to Marsascala). He was wearing a suit at around 6pm and polishing the already polished BMW windows. Most probably he wanted to make sure that his minister’s kids had a clear view.