Employees of Malta’s anti-money-laundering agency, which investigated the country’s connection to the Panama Papers, are still in the dark about who will be taking over as their new head following the departure of Manfred Galdes last August.

Despite an announcement by Finance Minister Edward Scicluna more than three weeks ago that the new person to head the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) had been chosen, no one has been told who it is, one employee said, speaking on the condition of anonymity.

Former FIAU director Manfred Galdes

Prof. Scicluna had simply said that the individual was “highly qualified and experienced”, without giving a name. Questions and several reminders sent over the past month to Attorney General Peter Grech, who chairs the agency’s board of governors, which chooses the director, have been ignored.

The other representatives on the board are appointed by the Central Bank Governor, the chairman of the Malta Financial Services Authority and the Police Commissioner.

Work here has continued as normal, so it really does not make any difference

Despite the mystery surrounding the agency’s new head, it appears to be business as usual for the FIAU’s 30 or so employees.

“With or without the new head, work here has continued as normal, so it really does not make any difference to us,” the employee told The Sunday Times of Malta.

The role of the FIAU is to gather intelligence. However, it does not have the power to prosecute, so its investigations are passed on to the police to take action.

The agency periodically passes on information of this nature to Maltese financial institutions. The information often originates from the international Financial Action Task Force, an intergovernmental body that promotes measures combating money-laundering and other threats to the international financial system.

Dr Galdes’s abrupt resignation was an-nounced last August after it was made public that the FIAU had concluded an investigation into the Panama Papers leak.

The former FIAU chief refused to state publicly why he had resigned, saying the law precluded him from doing so. It was later announced that he had been appointed CEO and director of ARQ Group’s compliance and anti-money-laundering branch.

The conclusions of the Panama Papers investigation by the FIAU were reportedly handed over to the police, but the report was never published, and it is not known whether the police ever took any action over the report’s findings.

Former police commissioner Michael Cassar went on a long sick leave soon after the report was given to him and eventually resigned for personal reasons.

The agency’s bulletins that listed Panama as high risk were circulated in 2014 and circulated again in 2015, at around the same time that two companies in Panama were set up by Keith Schembri, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, and then energy minister Konrad Mizzi.