Konrad Mizzi told the Pana Committee that in their e-mails, Nexia BT must have attributed to him things attributable to OPM chief of staff Keith Schembri.

During the closed-door session at the Parliament building in Valletta on Monday, the visiting MEPs sitting on the committee asked why Nexia BT e-mails showed he had set up his Panama company to extract profits from waste recycling in China, India and the Middle East. Dr Mizzi, Minister Within the Office of the Prime Minister, replied it was the result of confusion on the part of his advisers, the Times of Malta is informed.

He suggested that, in their e-mails, Nexia BT must have attributed to him things that should have been attributed to Mr Schembri.

MIZZI INSISTED HE HAD NO BUSINESSES

An MEP asked whether it meant that Nexia BT had invented things about him without his authorisation, and Dr Mizzi insisted that it was Mr Schembri who owned such businesses, because he had no businesses whatsoever.

Keith Schembri

He said the MEPs should ask Nexia BT and not him about what they wrote in their e-mails. The minister complained that the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists had refused his request to give him copies of all the e-mails and documentation in its possession.

During the session, attended by all Maltese MEPs except Alfred Sant, the head of the Labour delegation, Dr Mizzi was asked to explain why the e-mails sent by Nexia BT’s Karl Cini gave the go ahead on his behalf to open a bank account in a Panama Bank – BSI – that needed an initial deposit of almost $1 million.

He flatly denied he had authorised his financial advisers to open the bank account, although he acknowledged it had been proposed to him.

He said that Nexia did not have any remit to open any bank accounts either for him or for his company but only to make enquiries. In fact, he continued, Nexia had made enquiries in about eight banks, but when they said he needed to deposit almost $1 million, he declined the offer.

When pressed on whether Nexia had invented things about him, he invited the MEPs to ask Nexia.

Dr Mizzi said that an audit he had commissioned showed that no bank accounts had been opened, adding that this was a spin tactic against him by the Nationalist Opposition, as well as the media.

'STRANGE, TO SAY TE LEAST'

Sven Giegold, from the Greens, told Dr Mizzi that his structures in New Zealand and Panama raised a lot of doubts because it was exactly the way in which structures for money laundering were set up.

Sven Schulze, from the EPP, said that Dr Mizzi’s trust and Panamanian company were very strange, to say the least. He asked why the minister could not set up such a structure in Malta, since the Finance Minister had told the MEPs earlier in the day that the island had one of the best financial services industries.

Anna Gomes, from the Socialist group, said that since Dr Mizzi’s Chinese wife was a Maltese citizen, she did not see any need for such a complicated international structure.

The conservatives group’s Roberts Zile, from Latvia, noted that Dr Mizzi’s financial structure did not help people to have trust in him.

Insisting that he had done nothing wrong and that his intentions were not bad but genuinely meant to protect his family’s assets, Dr Mizzi admitted that, with the benefit of hindsight, he should not have opened the trust and the Panama company in particular. He insisted he had based his decisions on the advice given him by Nexia BT.

The Pana Committee is expected to submit a report on the Malta mission in its inquiry into money laundering and tax evasion and avoidance.

ivan.camilleri@timesofmalta.com