Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1521306
13 VITALS INQUIRY maltatoday | SUNDAY • 26 MAY 2024 KURT SANSONE ksansone@mediatoday.com.mt Schembri-Mizzi as intended overs shore A2Z, over €300,000 would be levied in "consultan- cy charges" for Pierre Slad- den's construction company Redmap Limited, and subcon- tractor costs of €250,000 from another offshore Blue Sea: the yield was the €50,000 gross profit. Investigators are yet to un- derstand why Schembri, Hillman and Sladden used an offshore company to reap 'consultancy' profits from a company owned by Sladden. "Indeed, why the service ar- rangement needed such off- shore secrecy also requires explanation. What in our opinion would make sense of the arrangement would be if Sladden and Redmap became involved in the Times of Mal- ta building project only with the permission of Hillman and the influence of Schem- bri." Eurybates: grand looting Ivan Vassallo was serving as a front in other companies, such as Eurybates, set up in Septem- ber 2015, which investigators believe was a vehicle for kick- backs from other projects, such as a new major hospital con- struction project at Smart City, where Schembri held sway as an appointed government director. Evidence suggests that its concealed ownership mirrored that of Gateway with 90% of the shares held for 'K, K, AH & PS'." Investigators estimate that Eurybates derived around €1.9 million between 2016 and 2021 in kickbacks from major suppli- ers to the Concession: Sirimed SRL, Technoline, Ergon Tech- noline JV, Shapoorji Pallonji and CERS Group. Sirimed had been tasked with works on the medical school campus in Gozo. Ergon-Tech- noline JV was awarded a tender to design and build the Paola Primary Healthcare Regional Hub. Shapoorji Ballonji was en- gaged to design and build pro- jects at St Luke's Karin Grech, and Gozo General hospitals. Impaqt Limited, owned by Schembri's Kasco Engineering, was transferred to former Kas- co employee John Comerford in 2015, and then proceeded to provide consultancy to the health and energy ministry, always marking up their in- voices by 44%. These contracts generated over €500,000 - €370,000 of whicxh were sales to Mater Dei Hospital, and Ka- ren Grech and Gozo hospitals. Impaqt provided consultan- cy services to Eurybates be- tween March 2019 and July 2020 at a rate of €6,000/€9,000 per month. The catch is that Schembri's Kasco provided finance of around €80,000 to fund Impaqt. The inquiry references data that reveals Kasco was initial- ly in control of the company until August 2015, weeks after the concession was awarded to VGH. It was at this point that Kasco separated from the company, "which appears to us to be quite a coincidence", investigators said. Encore Trading Ltd is anoth- er company that is believed to have been under the control of Ivan Vassallo and Pierre Sladden as associates of Keith Schembri. The inquiry says the company received almost €100,000 as a kickback for the award of the Paola Regional Hub tender, as Encore's share of income from the project had been agreed at a rate of 10% on the profits. Moreover, Schembri seems to have also been connected to the Barts Medical School, in both its development and construction. The inquiry says significant bribes flowed out of these two contractors, and John Dalli and Keith Schem- bri may have set up deals with Shapoorji Pallonji ahead of the Concession. Shaukat Ali's nephew made new Technoline director In late 2017, with plans to replace VGH with Steward al- ready underway Shaukat Ali's nephew, Yaser Ali Badar, was appointed as Technoline's new director. "We consider that installing Mr Badar as director allowed Shaukat Ali to retain a degree of control and oversight in Technoline in the post VGH era. In the process of selecting Mr Badar for the directorship, Mr Vassallo informed Mr Tu- muluri that he had conferred with "the three other forces" on the matter." This, the experts said, indi- cates that in late 2017 Ivan Vassallo was still working un- der external control, despite him being the registered sole owner of Gateway and Tech- noline. While not being able to con- firm the identity of the "three other forces", experts came to the conclusion, based on lim- ited communication between Schembri and Vassallo, that they probably were Shaukat Ali, Asad Ali and Keith Schem- bri. THE top brass at VGH were al- ready aware in November 2016 that Malta would be heading for an early election in 2017, the hos- pitals inquiry reveals. It was Keith Schembri who spilt the beans to Ram Tumuluri over concerns that VGH was heading into a clash with the Medical As- sociation of Malta (MAM). The information comes from an email dated 26 November that then CEO Armin Ernst sent to VGH's largest silent shareholder Shaukat Ali. Ernst was expressing concerns on the management of VGH. Ernst told Ali about Tumuluri's request that a "strong statement" to MAM be "put on hold" at the last minute. The reason was that "Keith" called Tumuluri and told him he needed to have a conversa- tion about the "election campaign for next year and how our state- ments fit into it". This revelation is yet another confirmation of what Daphne Caruana Galizia murder suspect Yorgen Fenech had said that he knew sometime in December of 2016 that the election would hap- pen in 2017. When testifying in the Daphne Caruana Galizia public inquiry, Keith Schembri had confirmed that the PL started planning for an early election around February or March of 2017. He had said polls were showing the PL would storm to victory if a snap election were held. However, Ernst's email suggests that the idea of an early election in 2017 had started germinating well before. In the first six months of 2017, Malta held the EU presiden- cy and made a success of it. However, on Worker's Day Muscat announced the election, linking the announcement to the instability caused by the allegation made by Caruana Galizia that his wife Michelle Muscat owned the secretive company Egrant. An in- quiry found no evidence linking the Muscats to Egrant. The election was held on 3 June and the PL won a second consec- utive term in government by a re- sounding majority. VGH top brass knew of early election in November 2016