The revelation that Konrad Mizzi set up a trust in New Zealand that owns shares in a Panamanian company after he became a minister has shocked and shaken the nation.
It is the very opposite of transparency and good governance. The fact that the Prime Minister appears to think there is nothing wrong with this is even worse. In any other civilised jurisdiction, their heads would have rolled. It is only in undemocratic dictatorships that this sort of thing occurs and life goes on as per normal.
What is so wrong is that after he became a minister he opted for a corporate structure in a jurisdiction renowned for its secrecy. In doing so he effectively ensured that the affairs of the Panamanian company, whatever they were, would be beyond scrutiny.
Should a minister create a corporate vehicle that is beyond scrutiny? No, not in a democracy anyway. In a democracy, good governance demands the very opposite and ministers are expected to subject themselves to scrutiny because this should guarantee good behaviour and misbehaviour difficult to conceal.
Furthermore, the Commissioner of Inland Revenue cannot audit either a New Zealand trust or a Panamanian company, so the minister’s insistence on the results of the audit is hog wash. When one starts to try to understand why Mizzi went through this complex structure for what appear to be modest assets, one becomes even more confused. Why should he have gone through the expense and effort of creating and maintaining a Panamanian company in one extreme time zone when it is the trust in the other extreme time zone that is supposedly the owner of such assets? So if the trust is the owner of the assets, why create the Panamanian company in the first place?
This entire affair is shambolic and totally unbecoming of a minister, and equally unbecoming of the Prime Minister, who has accepted it and who has now also accepted that his right-hand-man, Keith Schembri, has the same arrangement. In fact, according to Mizzi, it was Schembri who encouraged him to pursue this avenue. We therefore have two people with huge government profiles with corporate structures that are closed to public scrutiny, and the Prime Minister thinks this is OK.
Honest Labour MPs are as disgusted about this entire affair as the rest of us
It beggars belief that a few days ago, we were all flabbergasted about the fact that Cabinet had approved the unconstitutional appointment of two magistrates.
Before that we had the decision of the auditor general that the purchase by government of half an undivided share of a house in Valletta, which the government did not need, for a price in excess of €3 million, was the result of “collusion”, leading to the resignation of Michael Falzon.
Before that we were informed that Parliamentary Secretary Ian Borg attempted to get a permit by using, in the words of the Ombudsman, “devious means”; we had another minister involved in a cover-up involving his driver and a shootout, leading to the minister’s resignation.
We have had the Prime Minister himself withdraw a court action started by the Nationalist government against the defaulting tenant of Café Premier and instead pay the defaulting tenant the sum of €4 million.
We have had this government sell our only energy generation plant to Shanghai Electric, thereby losing all control over electricity prices, notwithstanding the record low price of oil, and at the same time sell to it one-third of Enemalta, to which large tracts of public land were transferred just prior to the transfer.
We have seen this government enter into a power purchase agreement with Electrogas for 18 years at a rate much higher than that for the purchase of electricity through the interconnector; meanwhile, Electrogas was supposed to build a power station we never needed, and Maltese taxpayers found out that the government gave a €360 million guarantee to BOV in case Electrogas defaults on its repayment obligations.
We have seen the Prime Minister hijack the armed forces, and the Ombudsman having to resort to our courts to obtain the information he was seeking regarding irregular promotions in the army; we have seen the Prime Minister give his own party a gift amounting to some €12 million in the form of Australia Hall, and give a foreign contractor tracts of virgin land at Żonqor Point for a non-existent, non-American, non-university. The shame of it all – it leaves you breathless.
And yet the news last week overshadows all of the above. The extent to which it overshadows everything else is evidenced by the fact that honest Labour MPs are as disgusted about this entire affair as the rest of us and cannot hide their embarrassment at this sordid affair.
This only means one thing – it means that the citizens of this country must look towards the person who can lift this country up, give it back its dignity and make us proud again to be Maltese, and that will only happen when Simon Busuttil becomes Prime Minister.
Ann Fenech is president of the PN executive council.