African billionaire is the link between Panama Papers and PN’s Noel Buttigieg Scicluna

There’s a direct link between PN’s Noel Buttigieg Scicluna and the Panama Papers and her name is Isabel dos Santos, the daughter of Angolan President Eduardo dos Santos. Valued at $3 billion by Forbes she is one of Africa’s richest people.

One of Dos Santos’s associates is Mario Leite da Silva. Malta Today picked up news reports which surfaced in Portugal linking Mr Da Silva, Isabel dos Santos and PN’s Noel Buttigieg Scicluna.

Together with Noel Buttigieg Scicluna, Mario Leite Da Silva appears in Malta registered companies which are traced back to Isabel dos Santos.

Winterfell Industries is one of her Malta registered companies, owned by Angolan state-owned energy company ENDE (40%) and Niara Holdings (60%) which is owen by Santos herself and a Cyprus registered company Carana Management whose beneficial ownership is unknown.

Da Silva is also the director of another Malta company, Kento Holdings, which is owned by Dos Santos and her husband Sindika Dokolo; and Victoria Holding which is also partly owned by the Angola state-owned diamond corporation’s trading arm, Sodiam, and another company believed to be Dokolo’s, Melbourne Investments. Noel Buttigieg Scicluna has protested vehemently and lately his critique was voiciferous on PN media criticising Joseph Muscat’s government on good governance and transparency. A former Nationalist MP Noel Buttigieg Scicluna has served the previous government as a politically appointed Ambassador and in other directorship roles of various governmental boards and entities.

He has also acted as a consultant to EMD, the Maltese company with the largest number of clients mentioned in the Panama Papers, 72 in all.