Action on Panama leaks in Malta will only be taken following the conclusion of an investigation and based on its conclusions, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said this morning.

Closing the party’s general conference today, he said that if the investigations found that the people concerned had lied their position would no longer be tenable.

Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi and chief of staff Keith Schembri are among those implicated in the Panama Papers released last week.

If the investigations found that they had been saying the truth, this would still not be an excuse for no action to be taken - because the damage had been done.

The government would give a sign that it had to do what was correct and not just what was legal.

“This action will depend on facts which will take the people’s genuine concerns into consideration,” he said.

Admitting that he could have done things better, Dr Muscat said he was willing to learn humbly but his united government would on Friday win a vote of confidence strongly and unequivocally.

While Busuttil is bitter, we will be better

It was not enough to move a vote of no confidence, a plan of government had to be moved - this was something Opposition leader Simon Busuttil did not have, the Prime Minister said.

“While Busuttil is bitter, we will be better,” he said.

Earlier, Dr Muscat said that he had never been afraid to take decisions.

“My job everyday entails taking constant decisions and shouldering responsibility..."

He noted that the most crucial and difficult decisions he took were never made public, they would have been taken to avoid or solve problems before they came to fruition.

However, he did not take his decision based on surveys or on what was being said.

“The day I start taking decisions according to popularity would be the day I stop administering the country... Had I looked at the numbers when I supported divorce, or civil unions, they would never have been introduced.”

A leader, Dr Muscat said, stopped being a leader when he allowed himself to be drawn with the currents… a leader was a leader when he listened, considered and then took decisions.

“This is what I have done so far and what I will continue to do.”

He admitted that the Panama leaks issue had concerned a lot of people including himself.

“The only people who did not mind the story where those who saw in it an occasion to damage the government and the country,” he said.

Those involved in the matter, he said, were denying that anything illegal had taken place. The investigations had to be carried out to establish whether or not this was the case.

It was only then that he would take a final decision because this government was not a reed swayed by the wind.

To take a decision before then would give the message that those who shouted won in this country.

“I want to live in a country where the voice of reason and not who shouted the loudest prevailed.”

Jokingly, he said he wanted to assure the people who thought he had lost weight because of the matter that this was actually because he was eating healthier and exercising.

PN LOAN SCHEME IS MAKING PANAMA IN MALTA

On the loan scheme launched by the Nationalist Party a few days ago, Dr Muscat said that this was a decision in favour of corruption. The issue, he said, was not legality but correctness.

For while there could be doubts about the legality of the scheme there were none that it was a corrupt scheme.

The scheme was making a Panama in Malta.

“My challenge to Dr Busuttil is to broadcast the names of those who would be loaning the party money in these exchanges of corruption, these Panama exchanges in Malta.”

GOVERNMENT TO PUBLISH ALL PUBLIC CONTRACTS

The Prime Minister also promised to publish, by the end of the year, all government public contracts including those in the sectors of health and energy.

“While protecting commercially sensitive information we have to give the message that we have nothing to hide,” he said.

Malta would also support an international initiative for the setting up of an international registry of companies listing cases of corruption. This would enable all the world to know who was bidding for public contracts.

FINANCIAL SERVICES

The government, the Prime Minister said, would also be ensuring, together with the regulator, that a registry of beneficial ownership of companies that would be accessible to authorities that fought abuse in line with EU directives and rules was set up.

“We will continue to strengthen this sector and remain a model of transparency…

“To ensure that this is done, we will come up with a plan of action for the enforcement of these measures, which will be published online for everyone to be able to follow the implementation process,” he said as he announced that the exercise would be led his deputy Louis Grech.

The government’s duty, he said, was to protect the sector and ensure that it continued to grow.

SURREAL

In a single-worded statement, the Nationalist Party described the Prime Minister's speech this morning as 'surreal'.

 

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