The Prime Minister’s performance at the Anti-Corruption Summit in London has been met with incredulity and disbelief. Set against the Panama Papers scandal that has rocked Joseph Muscat’s government to the point of immobility, his words on fighting corruption sounded hollow if not surreal.

It is the price he has to pay for his inaction over the Panama scandal that involved his chief of staff, Keith Schembri, and his most prized minister, Konrad Mizzi. Panama is an albatross around the Prime Minister’s neck and it will continue to haunt him. He has only himself to blame. It was his choice to keep them in office.

The latest Panama leak has brought to the fore the country’s deep involvement in offshore activities. A total 714 companies linked to Malta have emerged from the Panama Papers database published by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, ranking Malta among the top eight EU states with the highest number of offshore entities included in the list. It is nothing to be proud of.

If used for perfectly legal purposes and registered with tax authorities, offshore companies can be perfectly legitimate. But it is not always the case because secrecy is key in such offshore operations. And despite the understandable hype caused by Dr Mizzi and Mr Schembri’s trusts and companies, the issue is certainly not restricted to Malta’s political class. Rather, it reflects a national malaise.

Dr Muscat’s inaction has not helped discourage tax evasion. Inversely, his decision to keep Dr Mizzi and Mr Schembri by his side takes local political standards to their lowest ebb. But he also reflects a national psyche.

There are local intermediaries, banks, law firms and accountants, who serve as middlemen in the process of setting up an offshore company. Everything can be legal but it still does not come across well because why would an intermediary suggest Panama or the British Virgin Islands to set up shop? They may call it business.

Sadly, Panama has now become a national joke, reflecting a mentality that all is game if you can get away with it. Some just get caught out.

Nationalist Party leader Simon Busuttil talks of clean politics buthis political platform will serve for nothing if he limits his objectives to the political class. The problem lies much deeper.

It is ingrained in society, a society that lives off political patronage and votes into Parliament those people willing to deliver what their voters expect, even undeservedly.

What Dr Busuttil is proposing may be impossible, not because it is ill-conceived or cannot be done, but because he may not be able to radically change the way society thinks and operates.

Yet, his promise of clean politics is the only solution to the national malaise. If implemented, his promise involves a radical departure from the way the country has been operating since Independence. It is an immensely tall order but there is no alternative if the country wishes to progress. He promises a change at the top but the new culture he wants must trickle down.

The Panama Papers have exposed the country for what it really is. It is a disheartening sight. For months, the Prime Minister has been playing down the whole Panama affair, thinking apologies will close the case. He has emerged from the scandal badly bruised but certainly not beaten. It is not to his credit that he has survived but to the voters’ discredit that they accept the unacceptable.

The bar is so low, as is fiscal morality in the country.

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