Kittiwake is the name of a bird species. It’s pronounced ‘kitty’, as in “Here, kitty cat, I have a treat for you!” and ‘wake’, as in “Wake up and smell the coffee”.
Kittiwakes are a type of seagull which exclusively nest on high sea cliffs and perch their seaweed nests on the narrowest of ledges. Their name comes from their ear-shattering, shrill call: ‘kittee-wa-aaake, kitte-wa-aaake’. If you want to try it, you need to sound a bit nasal and loud enough for your neighbour to hear you, a bit like ET the extra-terrestrial on steroids.
Why am I talking about seagulls this morning? Well, really, it’s by virtue of Malta’s foremost business family, the Gasans.
We know now that there was a lot going on under that professional, glitzy veneer of the Gasan group of companies, with Joe Gasan as the paterfamilias: namely, rotten deals on the corrupt Electrogas project.
The Gasan family has a 35 per cent stake in the project, his nephew-in-law has a 21 per cent share and Malta’s other top business family, the Fenechs of Hilton have another 35 per cent share plus another eight per cent belonging solely to Yorgen Fenech. Apart from being the figurehead of the Fenech family, Yorgen is one of the alleged masterminds of Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination.
In fact, it’s becoming increasingly obvious that the journalist was murdered because of what she was unearthing on Electrogas. So, it’s important to keep in mind that all the Gasan family is involved: Joe, his sisters, his offspring, his nephews and his nieces. The two main protagonists of the younger generation in the saga are his son, Mark and his nephew-in-law, Paul Apap Bologna.
Just by way of context, Paul is married to Joe’s niece, Greta, who is best-friends-forever with Elena Zammit Lewis, wife of the justice minister, and ergo friends with the disgraced Michelle and Joseph Muscat. Birds of a feather flock together and so on.
The Gasans, Apap Bolognas and the Fenechs did not really have the monies to finance the project despite joining forces with foreign investors but that was not a problem because Muscat secured a public loan for them after he was elected.
In 2015, two years before Electrogas had even generated a nano-unit of electricity, all the shareholders gave themselves €16 million in “success fees” from that bank loan.
This meant that the Gasans, Fenechs and Apap Bolognas together got more than €6 million of that pat-on-the-back money. Apap Bologna and Mark Gasan secretly signed off €2.5 million of that money to Fenech, for his “interfacing with authorities”.
In turn, Fenech planned to pass that amount on to the secret Panama companies of his mates in authority, that is, Muscat’s chief of staff, Keith Schembri and top minister Konrad Mizzi.
By way of thanks, months later, Mizzi spared all the Electrogas shareholders €40 million in taxes and lumped them on us taxpayers, instead.
The Gasans et al clearly thought that, because of their established reputation, their involvement would be shrugged off- Kristina Chetcuti
You will recall how, last October, Apap Bologna suffered bouts of amnesia about all this when grilled by the public inquiry into the murder of Daphne.
Ahem, Apap Bologna muttered to the public inquiry, those €2.5 million were a “misdraft”. Why, perchance, he and Mark Gasan had only noticed it the very week Times of Malta found out about it.
Ahem, Apap Bologna muttered to the public inquiry, he didn’t know why the shareholders had given themselves those millions of “success fees”. Why, perchance, he never noticed how his bank account suddenly swelled up.
Ahem, Apap Bologna muttered to the public inquiry, he did “not recall” any lunch meetings with Muscat or, at least, “certainly not Saturday lunches”.
All this brings me neatly to this week’s Times of Malta revelations about another blackout in Apap Bologna’s memory: Kittiwake.
No, he does not have a pet seagull which he forgot all about. Kittiwake is the name of his secret company set up in the United Arab Emirates in 2015, more or less at the same time that Fenech set up his secret 17 Black company, to pass on those €5,000-a-day to Schembri and Mizzi.
In February 2017, Kittiwake wired $200,000 to Fenech’s company. Fenech explained that as a “refund” because, erm, he had made an overpayment to Kittiwake sometime earlier. Fenech also confirmed that he was working with Apap Bologna on a project in Bangladesh, similar to the Electrogas project in Malta.
But, ahem, Apap Bologna not only failed to mention Kittiwake but also had told the public inquiry he had “no knowledge” of Fenech’s plans in Bangladesh.
(Meanwhile, Apap Bologna is board director of a company involved in a multi-million-euro medical marijuana production project which, surprise, surprise, has been given unusual, premature, eye-brow raising, advantageous financial support by the Maltese government. Maybe judging by his severe amnesia, he’s testing the products he’s selling.)
In any other country, the Electrogas deal would by now long have been as dead as a dodo. But not here. Surely, it is common sense for the Gasans and the Apap Bolognas and their link to Muscat’s government to be investigated at the very least?
The Gasans et al clearly thought that, because of their established reputation, their involvement would be shrugged off. But this time round, like the kittiwake, they built their nest too close to the edge and ended up with an albatross around their neck.
They think that silence will make everything go away. It won’t. Instead, their sound reputation has given way to a ridiculous shrill call which will follow them wherever they go: “kittee-wa-aaake, kitte-wa-aaake.”
krischetcuti@gmail.com
twitter: @krischetcuti