Shanghai consulate acquired in 2014

An ‘initial title certificate’ for the acquisition of an apartment in Shanghai, China, has confirmed MaltaToday’s story on Sunday that the €2 million property deal was meant as a consular office for Sai Mizzi Liang – wife of energy minister Konrad Mizzi.

The story eventually pushed the government into announcing that Sai Mizzi had already been appointed consul-general for Malta in Shanghai back in 2014, after having been controversially appointed as trade envoy for Malta Enterprise soon after Labour’s election in 2013.

Originally, the €160,000 job was viewed controversially as a nepotistic gesture that put paid to Muscat’s ‘meritocracy’ battle-cry in the 2013 general elections. Her contract was only published a year later, after she appeared by Joseph Muscat’s side in a trade delegation to China.

A promise-of-sale agreement for her new Shanghai office obtained by MaltaToday now confirms that the deal was inked on 31 October, 2014, at a time when questions were still being raised over Sai Mizzi’s role in Asia.

The revelation betrays the government’s intransigence and secrecy over the energy minister’s wife’s job in China: according to the Shanghai municipal government’s website, the Maltese consulate-general has been established there since 5 September, 2014, with Sai Mizzi as consul.

The address was also listed as 777 Magnolia Plaza on Hongqiao Road, the same property acquired two months later from the Shanghai Hui Jing Real Estate Development Co. Ltd for RMB 13.3 million (€2.01 million).

However, no similar listing yet exists on Malta’s own foreign ministry website – in itself another confirmation of the secrecy surrounding the establishment of the consulate and Sai Mizzi’s ‘promotion’ from trade envoy to diplomatic envoy.

Despite being under pressure over the unilateral appointment of a minister’s wife to a handsomely paid job, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has defended her appointment as a much-needed representative of the government inside China.

But the energy minister’s wife has also enjoyed a remarkable veil of secrecy, with her contract having only been published in parliament in July, 2014 after she appeared by Muscat’s side in China.

MaltaToday is still awaiting a decision by an appeals tribunal on a freedom of information request for the contracts of appointment for Sai Mizzi Liang and Shiv Nair, another trade envoy whose appointment was given little publicity by Malta Enteprise.

Together with a salary of more than €73,000 a year, more than half of which is non-taxable, Sai Mizzi also receives a representation allowance of €3,261 a year; a child allowance of almost €3,000 a year; a fully paid residence; an official car with fully paid expenses and fuel; and the full reimbursement of the use of her mobile phone. 

She is also entitled for payment of private schooling for her children – up to €18,783 a year; a 90 per cent reimbursement of medical, dental, and ophthalmic care for all members of her family; a one-time settling-in and outfit allowance; and 15 free flight tickets between Malta and Beijing for all members of her family, 10 of them being business class.