Konrad Mizzi in Dubai when Nexia alerted Mossack of bank account – PQ

Minister implicated in Panama Papers replies to PQs by Nationalist MP Simon Busuttil on his Dubai trips

Tourism minister Konrad Mizzi
Tourism minister Konrad Mizzi

Minister Konrad Mizzi has admitted having been in Dubai during August 2015, the same month during which his financial consultants were attempting to set up Dubai bank accounts for his offshore company.

Mizzi and the prime minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri have always denied having attempted to open bank accounts for their Panamanian companies, as suggested in the email conversations of their consultants Nexia BT in the Panama Papers leak.

Mizzi has now acknowledged in a reply to a parliamentary question by Nationalist MP Simon Busuttil that he had been in Dubai during August 2015, the same time Nexia BT was scouting for banks to open accounts for his Hearnville Inc. company.

Mizzi has only provided the bare details of his trips, namely being in Dubai in August 2015, February and November 2016, and not reasons for being there.

According to the Panama Papers, Nexia BT’s Karl Cini had informed his contact at Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca that he needed to open a bank account for Mizzi’s and Schembri’s offshore companies.

Mizzi flew to Dubai on 27 August 2015, a Freedom of Information request by The Times later revealed, around the same time as Cini was speaking to MF.