Tell it to the marines | Frank Camilleri

‘Go and tell it to the marines’. This expression is usually used in circumstances where one is allowed to say whatever they want to say but know they are not going to be believed.

The marines refer to the British servicemen who would regularly be visiting our shores for leave and regularly and inevitably get drunk to celebrate their rest period. The point is that one could be telling these regulars ‘anything’ about ‘anything’ knowing that these would not care to believe anything in their drunken mood.

In our case, one needs only to replace ‘alcohol’ with ‘politics’ to expect the same result.

So, let me start by advising Chris Fearne to go and tell his story to the marines. The most appropriate picture of Chris Fearne for me is the one where he was photographed sitting at the same table with Ram Tumuluri, an investor in the Vitals hospitals project. They were all smiles and comfortable.

Tumuluri was the man in charge of operating the three hospitals that government handed over to Vitals.

Now, I have travelled extensively over the last 40 years and met innumerable company executives and directors in more than 30 countries. Back in time we did not have the internet to google names and companies, but and this is a big but, I never travelled to meet anyone, or accepted to meet anyone visiting me in Malta, without first researching the name, the company and its financials. I for sure was not inventing the wheel since it all boils down to common sense.

For Chris Fearne to plead innocence of facts especially in his position, first as parliamentary secretary for health at the time of the Vitals concession award and later as minister when the transfer to Steward happened, is not enough. After all, it was he who hailed Steward as “the real deal”. He best go and ‘tell it to the marines’.

Unfortunately for Fearne, Magistrate Gabriella Vella did not happen to be a member of the ‘marines club’. After four years of investigation, 78 boxes of evidence and €11 million in expenses, she did recommend that criminal action be taken against Fearne.

The ‘marines’ would also have been quite interested to hear the explanation given by one of the former directors and owners of Technoline, a medical supplies company. The company was sold to one of its employees for a staggering €5.5 million.

This director did not query from where his employee’s funds came from before selling off the company.

Now again, I ran a few companies in my lifetime and employed quite a number of people. I knew the background to most of my employees so what would one expect my reaction to be if one of these employees suddenly came up to me wanting to buy one of my companies for €5.5 million?

There is little imagination required to answer this question. Had it been a big international or local company wanting to buy me out, then I would have done my due diligence and the facts would speak for themselves.

But a simple employee wanting to buy me out for that staggering sum of money would immediately raise my suspicion. The former Technoline director claims he had his suspicions but decided to take the deal notwithstanding.

I would say that even legally, he was duty bound not to accept the money in payment, since the ‘employee’ (Ivan Vassallo in this case) could not justify the source of funds. Even HSBC refused to accept Ivan Vassallo’s initial transfer of some €900,000 since he could not justify the source of these funds to the bank. In law, accepting funds in payment resulting from fraudulent gains and money laundering activities is a crime and ‘not knowing’ is not an excuse.

This director claimed to have carried out due diligence before concluding the deal. I wonder what sort of due diligence was performed when there was only one buyer with no commercial background and unwilling to disclose the source of funds.

I wonder who the ‘serious lawyer’ appointed by this director to carry out a due diligence is. I would not rate him serious for sure.

Now, this director argues he is ‘disgusted’ and ‘appalled’ with the Vitals inquiry findings. He may as well go and tell it to the marines.