Over half, at 54.6%, feel that Prime Minister Joseph Muscat should not retain his chief of staff Keith Schembri should the Labour Party (PL) be voted in again.

Respondents were asked a simple and straightforward question: Should Joseph Muscat retain Keith Schembri in his team if re-elected? Overall, just 22.4% said yes, 54.6% said no and a significant 23% say they are unsure.

The Malta Independent has repeatedly asked the Prime Minister what he intends to do with his most trusted man after Mr Schembri was instrumental in turning the international spotlight on Malta through his role in the Panama Papers scandal. Time and time again, Dr Muscat said the choice is up to him and has cited Mr Schembri’s claims of resigning should any allegations about him hold true, avoiding altogether the fact that his position has been untenable the moment the Panama Papers came out.

Prior to the 2013 electoral campaign, Mr Schembri was a seemingly innocuous albeit successful business man. He had set up Kasco Holdings back in 1996, with the group’s flagship company being Kasco Paper.

Enter the 2013 electoral campaign which saw the PL win by a landslide of 36,000 votes. Unofficially, many within the ranks of Labour commented that Mr Schembri’s business savvy and strategic mind made him the de facto brains behind the marketing operation. It is said that his contribution towards the strategy behind the famous Malta Taghna Lkoll campaign was integral in helping turn a PL victory that was likely to be within the region of 10-20,000 votes into a victory of 36,000 votes.

Three years into the PL being in government – which was not free of scandal until that point – Malta woke up to the unseemly financial dealings of Mr Schembri and then energy and health minister Konrad Mizzi.

Journalist and Blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia broke the story that Mr Schembri and Dr Mizzi, through the services of Nexia BT’s Brian Tonna – who is also consultant to the Prime Minister - had each acquired a company registered in Panama, sheltered by a New Zealand trust, just days after being elected into power.

Such holdings are often used to conceal an individual’s wealth and many use jurisdictions like Panama to avoid paying tax in their own countries or simply to conceal wealth if that money came from less-than-legitimate activities.

Just over a year later, Mr Schembri has had several other allegations made against him. After it was alleged that Mr Schembri has a bank account with Pilatus Bank Malta, by Mrs Caruana Galizia, in the wake of other claims about another Panama company called Egrant and the Prime Minister’s wife, Opposition Leader Simon Busuttil called on anybody to come forward with information about the ‘Castille trio’ – referring to the Prime Minister, Mr Schembri and Dr Mizzi.

Since making this call, he declared to have evidence about two other “major scandals.” Some weeks ago Dr Busuttil alleged that Brian Tonna received €166,800 from three Russians for the sale of Maltese Citizenship. The funds were passed into an account at Pilatus Bank belonging to Mr Tonna's British Virgin Island's Company (Willerby Trade inc.), he said. Soon after, Dr Busuttil alleged, two equal payments of €50,000 amounting to a total of €100,000 were passed on to Keith Schembri's Pilatus bank account.

A Magisterial inquiry has been launched before Magistrate Natasha Galea Sciberras.

More recently, Dr Busuttil presented eight box files full of what he claims proves allegations that Mr Schembri had made payments to former managing director of Allied newspapers Adrian Hillman in an act of what he called a classic case of money laundering. The documents were presented to Magistrate Aaron Bugeja, who is heading the Egrant Inc inquiry. Magistrate Bugeja is expected to decide on whether to open up a separate inquiry into the matter shortly.

 

PL/PN voter split

According to findings in the iSurvey, the overwhelming majority of those who voted PN in the 2013 general election believe Dr Muscat should not retain Mr Schembri on his team, at 83.5%. Just 3.4% believe he should stay and 13.1% are undecided.

Those who voted PL in 2013 are far more divided on the issue, with 38.2% believing that Mr Schembri should be retained, 30.3% believe that he should not and 31.5% are undecided.

Those who intend to vote PL in the upcoming snap election on 3 June are far surer of Mr Schembri, with 48% believing he should be retained, 21% disagreeing and 31% who are unsure.

Out of those who say they will be voting PN in the upcoming election, a whopping 91.5% believe he should not be retained, 2.3% believe he should and 6.2% are unsure.

Of interest to note is that a total of 67.1% of those who don’t know how they will be voting in the upcoming election do not think that Mr Schembri should be retained. This would tally with The Malta Independent on Sunday’s survey results on upcoming voting intentions where it was found that the undecided’s tend to swing towards the PN rather than PL this time around.

The May 2017 iSurvey – the ninth of its kind – was commissioned to Business Leaders Malta on behalf of The Malta Independent. A total of 500 respondents were used, representative of age, gender and spread of localities.