Five months on and we are still without the findings of the Malta Financial Services Authority on the accusations levelled against Bank of Valletta with regard to the multi-manager property fund saga. Is the MFSA dragging its feet or is it being thwarted in its efforts? Shouldn’t investors be at least told what has been happening during these long months?

The grapevine remains abuzz with rumours, even speculations, as is evidenced in a communication which I have lately received. It reminds of a proverb I once heard in South Africa: “When spider webs unite, they can tie up a lion.”

The many judicial protesters’ “wait-and-see approach” has morphed into a “wait-and-wait” one. This is not right, especially when the “megaphone manner” condemned by the bank’s chairman has remained muted since then.

Even if, like the Auditor General in the power station tender issue, the MFSA were to find smoke without being able to trace any fire on insider information benefiting those whom I previously described as “privileged shareholders”, I would dispel any suspicion of connivance by the bank’s directors.

As “custodian” the bank will surely be exonerated from “acting negligently without the necessary skill and care” as accused by the protesters. Except, possibly, for its choice of Insight Investment Management as joint-venturers with full empowerment to put funds wherever they considered best, without recognising fraudsters like Belgravia. Acting negligently without the necessary skill and care will then become applicable to Insight. Hence the bank’s dilemma: loyalty towards whom, partners or investors?

The chairman’s apt description “the Year of the Aftermath” might well have been said of the property fund’s trauma.