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James Debono
Diverging statements on Sea Malta’s privatisation fate are the order of the day in the big debate over which Nationalist minister committed the national shipping line to being divested from the public investments lists.
It is certainly clear that back in May 2003, former Prime Minister Eddie Fenech Adami had declared in parliament that the government had no intention of privatising Sea Malta, raising the question now as to whether Investments Minister Austin Gatt embarked on his privatisation policy irrespective of government’s declared policy when Fenech Adami inaugurated the tenth legislature in 2003.
Completely divergent versions are also expressed by Marlene Mizzi and John Dalli on whether government had committed itself to make a capital injection in Sea Malta, which according to Mizzi amounted to some Lm2 million. Mizzi says the commitment had been made by Dalli himself during a meeting on 22 January 2002.
But Dalli has denied that the government had made any such commitment. MaltaToday reported in June that a written communication from the finance ministry back in January and March 2002, had committed a Lm2 million injection for the ailing shipping line. Government never realised the pledge.
MaltaToday had also revealed that Dalli and MIMCOL chairman Ivan Falzon, the newly appointed Sea Malta chairman following Mizzi’s resignation, had been present for the meeting.
Sea Malta had been requesting a capital injection through which the company would have been able to consolidate its business and expand, and address the expiry of the moratorium acceded by the bank on the loan for the vessel Maltese Falcon.
In 30 years since its inception back in the 70s, Sea Malta never received a capital injection.
The details of the meeting in which Sea Malta was pledged a Lm2 million contribution, contradicts the administration’s assertion that it never intended to inject money in Sea Malta. Marlene Mizzi contends that the meeting did take place.
“From my own notes and ‘aides memoirs’,” the former chairman says, “which I am in the habit of compiling: I would like to invite Mr Dalli to refer to a meeting, chaired by himself on Saturday morning of the 22 January 2002…” her notes read.
According to Mizzi other government officials throughout the meeting included MIMCOL’s CEO Mario Mizzi, former Sea Malta director John Busuttil, and Sea Malta general manager Joe Bugeja.
“As is customary, minutes of meetings would have been sent to all participants, and I do not recall anybody present at this meeting disagreeing with the statement above,” Mizz said.
Like John Dalli, Ivan Falzon has also denied knowledge of any such commitment when the story was first published in June. “I have never seen a letter from the finance ministry with that amount at MIMCOL,” the new Sea Malta chairman said, who added that a commitment of such dimensions would have to be included in the budget estimates.
Marlene Mizzi also revealed that subsequent to this meeting, in early March 2002, correspondence was exchanged between MIMCOL and the Ministry of Finance where a recommendation for the promised capital injection of Lm2 million was to be forwarded to Sea Malta as soon as possible.
According to Mizzi the full texts of the letters and minutes of the above mentioned meetings are to be found in the files of Sea Malta to which she no longer has any access.
Mizzi said that the commitment had been made following a meeting held in June 2000 in the Office of the Prime Minister in which Eddie Fenech Adami, John Dalli and former Economic Services Minister Josef Bonnici were present. During this meeting Fenech Adami gave precise instructions to his ministers to address the financial problems of the shipping line and to ensure a sustainable future.
“Why these instructions were not followed is not for me to answer,” Marlene Mizzi says.
Since 1999 the former chairman had been sending numerous letters and reports previously forwarded to Josef Bonnici, underlining the fact that the company was undercapitalised.
Asked whether she was insinuating that the government and was not saying the truth on the issue of capital injection, Marlene Mizzi replied that she would not react with “silence” as Austin Gatt did when asked by another newspaper if she was not telling the truth on this issue.
“I will state with all responsibility, that someone has misled the taxpayer as far as Sea Malta is concerned. For some yet unknown reason, someone has followed a different agenda from government’s declared policy. That someone is not me.”
Marlene Mizzi insists that she was only making these revelations in the light of statements made by government officials with the aim of discrediting her.
“The unwarranted attacks on my personal and professional integrity has left me no option but to divulge facts, which serve to put this issue in its right perspective. I do not base my statements on memory or hearsay, as seems to have been done by others. I base my statements on documented evidence and facts as I have always done.”
Privatisation
In the budget speech for 2001 Sea Malta was not mentioned as one of the companies earmarked by the privatisation unit. Neither was Sea Malta one of the companies earmarked for privatisation in the privatisation whitepaper published the following year.
The government programme outlined in May 2003 at the opening of parliament had placed Sea Malta at par with Enemalta and the Water Services Corporation, Air Malta and the Gozo Channel, as companies that should operate successfully in a liberalised market “though always in line with the government’s social obligations.”
No reference was made to the privatisation of these companies. Fenech Adami had made it clear in the ensuing parliamentary debate that the government had never said it intended to privatise Air Malta, Sea Malta and Gozo Channel.
Mizzi states a letter sent to Austin Gatt and Ivan Falzon, signed by all the Sea Malta directors, states they were never informed or made aware of government’s intentions, nor was privatisation ever raised in the few meetings held with Minister Gatt.
“I reiterate what I said on several occasions, that the board did not expect to be consulted on an issue which concerns the shareholder, but in consideration to the onerous responsibilities shouldered by company directors on behalf of these same shareholder, we did expect to be kept informed,” Mizzi.
jdebono@newsworksltd.com
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