Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/679878
maltatoday, SUNDAY, 15 MAY 2016 News 11 Office Space Required Valletta, Floriana or the Central Region Area The Ministry for European Affairs and Implementation of the Electoral Manifesto would like to receive offers for the lease of office space with a minimum area of 3,000 square metres and parking ammenities located in Valletta, Floriana or a locality in the Central Region Area in Malta. Information is to be submitted in a sealed envelope, and deposited at the Directorate for Corporate Services, Ministry for European Affairs and Implementation of the Electoral Manifesto, Tal-Pilar, 31B, Marsamxett Road, Vallettaby noon of Monday, 30 th May, 2016. Full details may be accessed from the following portal https://deputyprimeminister.gov.mt/en/Procurement/P ages/Procurement.aspx European Structural and Investment Funds 2014-2020 Project may be considered for part-financing by the European Structural and Investment Funds Co-financing rate: 80% European Union; 20% National Funds Minister unaware of hotel's BVI company for timeshare MATTHEW VELLA FINANCE minister Edward Sci- cluna was a non-executive direc- tor of a hotel group that has been revealed to have a shareholding in an offshore company registered in the British Virgin Islands. The data published by the Inter- national Consortium for Investi- gative Journalists from the Mos- sack Fonseca clients' database shows that Evergreen Travel was registered in the British Virgin Islands on 6 July, 2001, via the in- termediary services of another tax haven's main trust company, the First Names Group. While First Names appears as the nominee shareholder of Ev- ergreen Travel, it is Hotel San Antonio plc that appears as the sole Maltese shareholder in the offshore company. Scicluna, who made his entry in politics when he was elected as a Labour MEP in 2009, before be- coming finance minister in 2013, was appointed on the board of the Hotel Mercure, now San An- tonio, as an outside director in mid-2000. Scicluna said his appointment resulted from a regulatory re- quirement in connection with the hotel's pending public bond issue. "The hotel at that time already had in place a franchise agree- ment with Accor and a time-share operation with local and foreign partners. I was never involved in the time-share operation and that could explain why I was not aware of the BVI account," Scicluna told MaltaToday yesterday. "My job as director was to ensure, as in fact I did, that all incomes from all operations, in- cluding time-share, were consoli- dated in the accounts of the San Antonio, audited, taxed accord- ingly and made public." Scicluna stayed on as director up until his appointment as finance minister in March 2013. That year he was paid €873 for his role. San Antonio hotel's former owner, Tony Zahra, who today is president of the Malta Hotels and Restaurants Association, referred MaltaToday's questions to the DB Group, which now owns the hotel. Zahra's organisation exited San Antonio some three years ago. "Hotel San Antonio Ltd has no accounts in Panama or any links whatsoever to it," a spokesman for the company said. "And it never did. Evergreen Travel Ltd is a foreign company with sharehold- ing wholly-owned by Hotel San Antonio Ltd and the financials of Evergreen Travel Ltd are fully consolidated in Hotel San Anto- nio Ltd according to law. "The only reason for this set up is to ensure that timeshare buyers have their rights safeguarded and hypothecated in favour of a trus- tee. This is a requirement and a normal practice in the timeshare industry." How Dos Santos cropped up in Panama Papers THE Portuguese wealth manager of a Luxembourgish bank had to deny claims that he had opened offshore companies for PEPs, by way of explaining how his bank refused to open accounts for an associate of Isabel dos Santos, Africa's richest woman and the daughter of Angolan dictator Eduoardo dos Santos. Billionaire Isabel dos Santos has an important Malta connection, because the island hosts com- panies which are partly owned by the Angolan state and Dos Santos, a fact that opens her up to accusations of having built her wealth on the back of the re- source-rich African state. Indeed it is Dos Santos's associ- ate, Mario Leite da Silva, who has been mentioned in connection with the Panama Papers, which news in Portugal focused on the role of Jorge Cunha, a wealth manager at the International Bank of Luxembourg (IBL) who would set up offshore companies for his clients with Mossack Fon- seca. None of his 12 clients had any political activities, but the Pan- ama Papers show that Cunha made an explicit request about offshore companies for politically exposed persons (PEPs). In one email, Cunha explained that IBL was closing accounts for European customers who were "not prepared to declare their funds in countries of origin". In 2014, at a meeting with Mossack Fonseca, Cunha revealed that one of his customers was the "presi- dent of a country" seeking to in- corporate about 15 Panamanian companies. Cunha subsequently denied with the Portuguese press that he had created offshore com- panies for PEPs. To clarify with journalists that IBL had not pro- vided these services to politicians, Cunha finally noted that he had even been approached to open an account for Isabel dos Santos, daughter of Angola's president. "I came to have a meeting in Lis- bon with business manager Mário Leite da Silva, a manager of Sarto- rial Asset Management," he said. Contacted by the Portuguese media partners of the Interna- tional Consortium of Journalists, Isabel dos Santos denied "cat- egorically the existence of any re- lationship with the company and what the bank said". Dos Santos and Malta Mário Leite da Silva appears as the director of several Dos San- tos companies based in Malta: Winterfell Industries and its subsidiary Winterfell 2, amongst others. Winterfell Industries is actual- ly partly-owned (40%) by Ango- lan state-owned energy company ENDE, and Niara Holdings (60%) which is itself owned by Isabel dos Santos and Carana Manage- ment, a company registered in Cyprus since 2010, whose ben- eficial ownership is unknown. Da Silva is also the director of another Malta company, Kento Holdings, which is owned by Dos Santos and her husband Sindika Dokolo; and Victoria Holding. Victoria Holding is also partly owned by the Angola state- owned diamond corporation's trading arm, Sodiam, and a com- pany believed to be Dokolo's, Melbourne Investments. Most of Dos Santos's Malta- registered companies include Noel Buttigieg Scicluna, the for- mer Nationalist MP and ambas- sador, as non-executive director. Valued at $3 billion by Forbes, Dos Santos is a major force in in- dustries such as diamonds, bank- ing and telecommunications, es- pecially since she herself holds stakes in her own country's state corporations. Isabel dos Santos denied 'categorically the existence of any relationship with the company and what the bank said' Isabel Dos Santos with business partner Mario da Silva