Now we know why Keith Schembri chose Adrian Hillman to head the Commonwealth Business Forum Organising Committee 2015

Published: March 14, 2016 at 10:32pm

One year ago, the government appointed Adrian Hillman, managing director of the Allied Group of Companies, publishers of The Sunday Times and the Times of Malta, to chair the organisng committee of the Commonwealth Business Forum 2015. Hillman travelled to London with a bunch of Muscat cronies for the official launch.

He would be working in tandem with friend-of-Joseph Phyllis Muscat (an importer and wholesaler of cosmetics), who was to chair the organisng committee for the main event, the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting 2015.

It seemed a little odd to people at the time, and many concluded that if the government had chosen the managing director of the publisher of The Sunday Times and the Times of Malta, then those newspapers must be in bed with the government because this government always, but always, picks people for that reason.

It was Keith Schembri, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, who selected Hillman for the appointment. And now we know why. Hillman has just resigned his position in a growing graft scandal involving the PM’s chief of staff and offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands.