So, anyone who hails from the South may remember Alex Mercieca Bathroom Centre in the outskirts of ?ejtun – a decrypt building that we mostly ignored as we drove to Tal-Barrani in the direction of Valletta.
Then, all of a sudden, Alex Mercieca was on the news for a blockbuster deal in 2018 where he rented out his showroom for a staggering ย31 million for the duration of 15 years. Now, this deal is being scrutinised once again since its author, the Minister for Economy, Silvio Schembri is back on the news with serious allegations of corruption. Silvio Schembri is being accused of giving away public land for free or steep discounts in exchange for kickbacks.
Back to Alex Mercieca’s bathroom centre. There are some incredibly interesting facts about it. In 2019, a year after signing the lease with the government, Alex Mercieca’s business saw a huge jump in revenues and an increase in its cash holdings from around ย50,000 to ย550,000 in 2019. In 2019 the company had a loan from its own shareholder (the shareholders are Alex Mercieca and his wife) of up to ย1.5 million, up to ย2 million in stock, and a gross profit of around ย50,000 after making more than ย2.9 million in revenue. Strangely enough, the gross profit remained roughly the same as in the previous year despite the large jump in revenue. In 2018 the company made a revenue of ย1.4 million. The company also had as its auditors Nexia BT (the corrupt auditors of Joseph Muscat and his criminal associates) until it changed them last year.
I could not find the note which explains the additional cash injection or the note about why the gross profit remained the same despite the increase in revenue.
The thing is that anyone with 15 employees, making a gross profit of ย50,000 on up to ย3 million in revenues will surely take Silvio Schembri’s deal. And there’s another strange thing. The property that the company leased to the government is not listed as part of its equity with the company’s total equity amounting to up to ย3.7 million in 2019, an increase of up to ย500,000 from the previous year’s ย3.1 million, probably because of the new cash injection.
The government could have easily negotiated to buy the whole property outright. I’m sure Alex Mercieca would have preferred to take some holidays as his Facebook account attest, instead of finding ways to grow his profit margins. Silvio Schembri seems to have obliged him easily.
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