CHIEF OF STAFF GRAFT SCANDAL: The PM, his chief of staff and Konrad Mizzi are now looking even worse

The board of directors at the Allied Group of Companies, which owns Progress Press Ltd, the Times of Malta and The Sunday Times, have given the Prime Minister a master-class in how things should be done when you are faced with the accusation, and later telling evidence, that one of your key people is corrupt.

A meeting of the board was convened within hours of the accusations first appearing on this website last Friday – even though I had not mentioned any name or been specific at that stage. Adrian Hillman, the managing director, was apparently challenged and questioned about his relationship with Keith Schembri, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, whose business is now almost the sole key supplier to Progress Press Ltd. His replies do not seem to have been satisfactory or reassuring, because he was immediately required to take forced leave of absence from work, pending an far-reaching inquiry into supply and trading practices, going back years, that was commissioned there and then.

On Saturday afternoon, this website published the story that Adrian Hillman owns a company in an offshore jurisdiction (not Panama) and that it was set up for him by Brian Tonna of Nexia BT, just as Keith Schembri’s was, in the same jurisdiction. I waited, before publishing this information, until I had told the directors of the board what I know – for the sake of correctness, given that I have a good working relationship with Progress Press and because I know several of them and didn’t want them to discover the shocking information through reading it off a media story.

That same day, all staff at Progress Press and Allied Newspapers received an email calling them to a meeting on Monday, today, at which they would be informed of the situation regarding the “allegations”. The email was sent out by the head of human resources who is, rather awkwardly, married to Adrian Hillman’s sister.

Yesterday morning, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Keith Schembri, issued a very vague statement “denying the malicious allegations” against him. This was a signal to the managing director at Allied Group to do the same. Sure enough, within a few hours Adrian Hillman had issued the same sort of vague denial. This denial was so ill-advised that it prompted me to publish more specific details about his company in an offshore jurisdiction. It was set up in 2011, I wrote last night, and it is registered in the British Virgin Islands. The board of directors knew this already.

This morning there were separate meetings for the staff in Valletta and Mriehel. When both meetings were over, the board of directors released a statement announcing that Adrian Hillman had resigned his position. There can be little doubt that his resignation was requested, and that the alternative had he refused was being fired, with a public announcement saying so.

This has now made the Prime Minister, his chief of staff and his health and energy minister look even worse than they already. The way in which the Allied Group board acted promptly and with no prevarication to safeguard the reputation and interests of their business, and the credibility of their newspapers, throws an even sharper spotlight on the Prime Minister’s abject handling of his own parallel situation. The Prime Minister has shown far less concern for the reputation and credibility of his government and our country than the board of directors at Allied have shown for the reputation and credibility of their newspapers and printing press.

Had the board of directors not acted in the way they have done, we would have rightly accused them of imperilling their companies and the jobs of the people those companies employ, and we would have said that the only explanation for such gross irresponsibility is that they, too, are on the take and shafting the business for their private ends. That is, in fact, what we are saying about the Prime Minister.

In the light of what happened today, his position is even more untenable than it was yesterday.

Adrian Hillman

Keith Schembri, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff