Despite giving the impression that the earnings from his various businesses are such that he would never be tempted to be corrupted, consolidated financial statements filed by the Kasco Group show Keith Schembri declared earning far less from his businesses than he suggests.

In 2011 the Kasco group declared a miserable profit of €18,895. That year Keith Schembri was paid €34,912 in a salary by his group. From 2012 to 2014 the Kasco group suffered yearly losses even though from 2013 it stopped paying Keith Schembri any money. Marginal profits in 2015 and 2016 did not make up for the net losses of the previous three years.

Over a six year period from 2010 to 2016 the Kasco group’s revenue shrunk by over 16%. Averaging profit and loss over this 6 year period shows that the Kasco group made an average yearly profit of €57,691 and paid nothing to Keith Schembri between 2013 and 2015. Even taking these 3 years into account, Keith Schembri pocketed €33,824 a year from his business interests comparable with a monthly gross salary of €2,800 euro a month.

This is considerably less than his earnings as prime minister’s chief of staff.

Testifying in court on the 16th October, 2017 and reported in Daphne Caruana Galizia’s last post minutes before she was killed: “His government salary is just peanuts to him, Mr Schembri said, because he has retained his companies and his shares and that is where he makes his money.”

However a review of the accounts of Keith Schembri’s businesses shows this claim to have been at least a gross exaggeration. 

The Kasco Group includes Kasco Recyling, Kasco Trading, Kasco, FSV and Graphic Supplies. All of these are fully owned by Keith Schembir. In addition there are Kasco Engineering, Tekhne Industrial, Berner Malta which Keith Schembri co-owns on a 50:50 basis with Malcolm Scerri or another company fully owned by Malcolm Scerri, and 3 City Designs which Keith Schembri co-owns on a 50:50 basis with his wife Josette Schembri Vella.

The last available accounts for the Kasco group are for the financial year ending in 2016.

The share capital of the group remained unchanged for the entire 6 year period before 2016.