Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/829797
ELECTION SPECIAL €1.00 Newspaper post PAGE 5 TUESDAY • 30 MAY 2017 • ISSUE 537 • WWW.MALTATODAY.COM.MT ELECTIONS DAYS TO GO 4 PAGE 6 CONTINUES ON PAGE 2 SEE EDITORIAL PAGE 13, SAVIOUR BALZAN PG 11 The government yesterday signed a letter of intent with Sicilian authorities that will "make it easier to draft a way forward" for the construction of a gas pipeline, which is expected to cost €320 million, and which will take approximately seven years to complete. Minister Konrad Mizzi with Prime Minister Joseph Muscat at the signing Dubai companies 'target clients' of Panama companies, leaked FIAU report excerpts EXCERPTS of an alleged report by the Financial In- telligence Analysis Unit – published by The Malta Inde- pendent – suggest that Nexia BT partner Karl Cini had de- scribed two Dubai companies as the "target clients" of the two Panamanian companies set up by Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi. The report was first publi- cized on Friday night by the same newspaper minutes before a live debate between Joseph Muscat and Simon Busuttil on Xarabank. Later at night in an unprecedented move the FIAU issued a pub- lic statement saying the re- port was an unfinished report and that the allegations had never been confirmed. According to the excerpts, which were yesterday pre- sented to magistrate Aaron Bugeja by the Independent are part of a 120-page report which the FIAU itself has said is unfinished and whose con- clusions are not what has so far been reported, the Dubai companies 17 Black and Mac- bridge were described as tar- get clients of Tillgate Inc. and Hearnille Inc – the offshore companies that Cini set up for the Prime Minister's chief of staff and former energy minister. It is unclear who set up these companies in the first place, but a transaction was expected to take place be- tween Orion Engineering Group to 17 Black, according to the report. Orion Engineering's owner Mario Pullicino happens to be the company secretary of Armada Floating Gas Ser- vices Limited, one of three companies set up in Malta by the owners of the LNG tanker moored at Delimara. Attempts to contact Mario Pullicino proved futile and questions also made to Karl Cini remained unanswered. PN's electoral pledges 'would lead' to 14% deficit YANNICK PACE IF the Forza Nazzjonali coa- lition were to implement its electoral manifesto, it would cost the country some €1.3 billion and result in a 14% deficit, Prime Minister and Labour Party Joseph Muscat said yesterday. Speaking at a press confer- ence, together with finance minister Edward Scicluna and Labour candidate Gavin Gulia, Muscat said that with only five days to the election, the Labour Party was pre- senting more details about the costings of its proposals. He said the Labour Party was also "doing the Opposition's work" by telling people how much the PN's proposals would cost. Muscat stressed that every proposal put forward by a party would ultimately have to be paid for by citizens, through taxes. "Many of their calculations are wrong," Muscat said. "For example, the way in which they calculated pensions is very naïve, or void of any ex- perience." According to Muscat it was not possible to raise the minimum pension and only factor in the cost to the coun- try of increasing the pensions for this group of people only since an increase in the mini- mum pension would auto- matically require other levels to be raised as well. Simon Busuttil testifies in third inquiry, insists 'bribery only plausible reason' MATTHEW AGIUS OPPOSITION leader Simon Busuttil spent about 90 minutes testifying before Magistrate Jo- sette Demicoli yesterday in the inquiry into allegations of kick- backs paid to Adrian Hillman. The evidence concerns accu- sations raised last week by Bu- suttil, who claimed that Schem- bri paid €650,000 to the former Allied Group managing direc- tor Adrian Hillman through an offshore company between 2011 and 2015, in what Busut- til said was a "textbook case of money laundering". MaltaToday Election Survey out next Thursday Be sure to order your copy