I write my weekly "ex-Beck" column on Wednesday, sometimes early Thursday, and this leaves me exposed to the foibles and whims of our sometimes not-so-honourable Lords and Masters.   This week, the perfect storm hit me: due to having one of those days ahead of me on Wednesday and an equally troublesome Thursday, I had to bang off my column pretty early on Wednesday, as you will have noted when you read it on Saturday.

I made no reference to Dr the Hon. Sai Lang's Husband Konrad Mizzi and his Panamanian company.  We were first given the impression that this was a shell-company, which I took to mean that it was just that, an empty shell, and then the letter "f" started to creep in to the sounds issuing from the mouths of Premier Joseph and his Siamese Twin, KM.

Which turned the shell company into a shelf company, which would mean that the company had been set up some time ago and made available, as these things are, to its eager purchaser, in this instance, Dr the Hon. Aforesaid, presumably through the good offices of his trusty Kiwi servants, the officers of the trust he had already (or contemporaneously) set up in New Zealand.

Whichever it was, a shell company or a shelf company, the questions that the transaction create remain very, very pertinent.  These are questions that stand alone, independent of the underlying reason for the transaction.

Quite apart from anything else, it's so not obvious that you need to set up a New Zealand Trust (and the extent to which New Zealand Trusts are viewed as - excuse the pun - trustworthy in that part of the world is iffy just a bit, for all the protestations about New Zealand being a bastion of probity and good governance) to manage a company in Panama in order to park four thousand ordinary, traded on the Malta Stock Exchange, shares in a Malta company and title to a flat on the Sliema Front, along with some cash.   

Panama is a black-listed jurisdiction in the European Union, a country of which we are members and of which Dr the Hon. KM is a Cabinet Minister.  

It is black-listed precisely because it doesn't suffer from the afflictions that are so annoying in clean jurisdictions, those pesky disclosure and reporting obligations that are so awkward for people who don't like their linen laundered in public.   To say nothing of not worrying about whether owners of their companies are PEPs ("politically exposed persons" or, to put it differently, people who might be tempted to dip their fingers into the public purse)   

I don't imagine, either, that Panamanian corporate service providers are pestered by anything like our Tax Compliance Unit or our Financial Information Analysis Unit, who are, thankfully, assiduous in ensuring that operators here are kept on the straight and narrow.    Except, from what I can make out, where minor matters such as having €500,000 in folding money under the mattress are concerned, but that's a whole other can of worms.

Premier Joseph Muscat exposes himself to being called nothing more or less than a purveyor of ambiguity and malicious obfuscation when, while sticking up for his protege' and bullying assorted journalists, he tries to tar Dr Simon Busuttil with the same brush that has coated Konrad Mizzi with much more, and much worse, than mere tar.  

Like every other operator in financial services in Malta, Busuttil was - and remains - subject to the strict rules of probity and good governance, including knowing and identifying your clients, that make Malta an acceptable jurisdiction.  As opposed to Panama, which is unequivocally not an acceptable jurisdiction.    

Moreover, it is one thing to be a financial services operator and quite another thing to be someone who makes use of these services, especially in jurisdictions like Panama and New Zealand.

I have to say, therefore, that I am morally convinced that Premier Muscat - supported his lickspittle lapdogs, L-Orizzont - is being malicious when he makes these excuses for Minister Mizzi and the latter's use of very, very questionable and quasi-anonymous vehicles.  He is equally, I hold, malicious when he brings Dr Austin Gatt into the picture because the two cases could not be more different.

In my humble opinion, Premier Muscat should apologise for this and his protected favourite, the Hon. Dr Konrad Mizzi, should resign, as others in his circumstances in other countries, have resigned for even less questionable practices.   

In fact, Premier Muscat, having nailed his colours to Konrad Mizzi's mast, should go too. 

I wouldn't suggest you hold your breath waiting for this to happen.

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