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Matthew Vella
The owner of the former BICAL bank and group of companies, Cecil Pace, has written to the Commissioner of Police asking him to proceed against former government appointed controllers for the way they managed BICAL assets to his detriment.
In a painstakingly handwritten, sixteen-page letter, the unrelenting Cecil Pace recounted his ordeal at the hands of controllers under whose administration, millions of liri in properties were sold off at pittances to favoured buyers.
“I have provided you with sufficient information to enable you to take this matter in hand without delays and to take all necessary steps against the controllers and to investigate the reasons why their superiors did not ever bother to check them and notwithstanding my please, which remained unanswered throughout,” the 75-year-old wrote in his letter to police commissioner John Rizzo.
Pace’s bank BICAL was taken under government administration after investigations into misappropriation of funds by Pace and his brother Henry started in 1973.
Despite their mandate to rid the bank of its debts by selling off sufficient assets, the BICAL empire was effectively decapitated by the selling off of factories, hotels and shipping vessels for giveaway prices – Pace suspects the actions were politically motivated.
Under Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici, who later became prime minister in 1984, Pace’s Comino Hotel was given back to the Comino landowner for free because Mifsud Bonnici did not want to keep paying the ground rent on the hotel.
In a horrible turn of events in 1995, both sides of the House of Representatives passed a law declaring immunity for all past controllers and the government.
Cecil Pace said he will be taking the matter up to the European Commission if the police decide not to take steps on the mishandling of the BICAL controllership by government.
Since emerging from prison in 1984, Cecil and his son Malcolm Pace have fought long court battles in a bid to redress the injustice of the BICAL decapitation.
The liquidation of his bank’s debts has dragged on since 1974, but government insists the last depositors in the former BICAL bank will soon be paid off.
“My companies have been dormant since 1974, and yet auditors and the controller are still getting paid for their work from the BICAL assets,” Pace says. “Up until 2000, they took monies from my companies which have been dormant for the past 31 years, up to Lm238,000 in yearly administrative costs. Whilst the companies remained inactive, they were still drained of the assets.”
mvella@mediatoday.com.mt
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