Financial services regulator Joe Bannister has shrugged off calls by the Education Minister for his removal because of directorships he holds in overseas funds.
The chairman of the Malta Financial Services Authority came in for another scathing attack by Evarist Bartolo yesterday, who in clear terms insisted Prof. Bannister’s position was untenable.
Prof. Bannister said the directorships he held were not connected to Malta, were well known and public. He said the story was closed four years ago when it first surfaced.
“I outlined my position in a letter to then Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi, who shared it with then Opposition leader Joseph Muscat. They were both fully conversant with the situation and decided it was case closed,” Prof. Bannister said. He refrained from making further comments.
They were both fully conversant with the situation and decided it was case closed
Last week, Mr Bartolo resurfaced the claims over Prof. Bannister’s directorships in hedge funds in the Cayman Islands. In a second instalment yesterday, he insisted Prof. Bannister had a conflict of interest.
Writing on his Facebook wall, Mr Bartolo also criticised Prof. Bannister’s 20-year stint at the helm of the MFSA.
Prof. Bannister was reappointed by the Labour government in 2014 for another five-year term as MFSA chairman. In a short comment from Brussels, where he was attending a meeting of EU finance ministers, Edward Scicluna skirted the controversial aspect of having a fellow Cabinet minister criticise a government appointment.
“Any allegation of this nature is taken seriously and dealt with according to my remit and in this case according to the relevant law itself,” Prof. Scicluna said.
Opposition leader Simon Busuttil took to Twitter to express indignation at Mr Bartolo’s post. “As if Panamagate was not damaging enough for our financial services industry, now this. It’s a disgrace,” Dr Busuttil tweeted.
Prof. Bannister was defended in Parliament last week by PL MP Charles Mangion.
In a second cryptic message on Facebook yesterday, Mr Bartolo said that in order to understand what was going on in public life, one had to know the background.
“One sees someone defending somebody else, mentioning principles and seriousness, and then one finds that there are personal obligations and that the two are doing very well together,” Mr Bartolo said.
Mr Bartolo has been openly critical of Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Keith Schembri, for opening secretive companies in Panama. He has insisted it was equally wrong for Prof. Bannister to be allowedto hold directorships in funds in the Cayman Islands.