Transparency International has flagged the International Monetary Fund’s failure to mention corruption in a report on Malta it published in February.
New IMF research shows that curbing corruption would deliver an additional $1 trillion in tax revenues yearly across the world.
In April 2018, the IMF unveiled a framework for enhanced engagement with countries on corruption and governance issues.
The international anti-corruption NGO said this week that although the IMF had undoubtedly become more outspoken about the issue since unveiling its new framework, mentions of corruption in the annual reports it compiled about member countries were unevenly distributed.
“While country reports for South Africa, Malaysia or Brazil have 40 or more mentions of corruption, others like Portugal, Singapore and Malta have none,” Transparency International said.
Transparency International analysed 60 IMF reports since April 2018, then compared the findings with the previous years’ reports from each country. They found IMF references to terms such as bribery, anti-corruption and money laundering had more than doubled.
Transparency International noted that while the IMF report about Malta made numerous mentions of anti-money laundering, none were made about corruption.
“This omission is quite remarkable considering the number of sources pointing to serious reasons for concern,” Transparency International commented.
It said a European Commission report, also published in February 2019, featured more than 20 references to corruption in Malta, including that “no significant steps have been taken to strengthen enforcement of the anti-corruption framework.”
Transparency International said a detailed report by the Council of Europe’s anti-corruption monitoring body went even further, noting an “unprecedented wave of controversies concerning the integrity of senior government officials up to the highest level”.
The anti-corruption NGO said one of its own studies, in conjunction with Global Witness, highlighted risks in Malta’s golden visa scheme and reports by the Daphne Project had found multiple cases of suspicious high-level deals.
Anti-corruption experts in civil society, both in Malta and beyond, could have pointed the IMF review team in the direction of these recent and ongoing reports, Transparency International remarked.
It cited the IMF’s omissions about corruption in Malta as an example of how civil society could contribute to its country reviews and also help hold national authorities to accounts once the IMF’s findings were made public.