You can’t reach any other conclusion, really. This must be the only place in what purports to be civilisation where a cabinet minister who wakes up one morning to find that the wall of secrecy around his Panama company and New Zealand trust has collapsed, instead of resigning spends two months faffing about and then lists both in his asset-declaration to parliament. And he carries on using both, too. This is, of course, beyond insane. Diplomats posted to Malta, and other non-Maltese who are living and working here, must be in a permanent state of eye-popping incredulity.
The point about the Panama company and the New Zealand trust was not whether he declared them to parliament or was planning to declare them to parliament. That is a complete red herring, and I have been saying this from the outset, when I was besieged by the sort of people who can’t see the wood for the trees, telling me ‘why didn’t you wait until after the declaration of assets’. Well, for a start, journalists don’t sit on stories for political advantage – that’s not journalism, that’s political strategy of the sort deployed by the newspapers in the service of the political parties. Secondly, the story was going to go global anyway, and thirdly, when a cabinet minister sets up a company in Panama and a trust in New Zealand, the issue is not whether he has declared them to parliament.
It is taken as read that the intention was secrecy, and it is the reason for the secrecy that is the issue, and what we have got to consider – and also, what would be a resignation matter anywhere else in the civilised world. The fact that he has now declared both to parliament – a farcical situation if ever there was one, given that the whole world knows about the Maltese minister’s Panama company and New Zealand trust – does not make the situation better. It makes it worse. Neither the trust nor the company remains hidden from us anymore, but their operations remain completely secret. The hidden existence of the trust and company, and their secret operations, are completely separate and distinct matters.
Consider this: we now know about the trust and company, but we still don’t know about their operations, their bank accounts, or their assets. When the Minister for Health and Energy carries on using them, we will be none the wiser. If the authorities in Malta wish to find out what the company’s operations are, where its bank accounts are, and what its assets and finances are, they can’t. They will be met with the same brick wall of secrecy that the authorities and journalists alike are meeting with now. The situation will carry on even when Konrad Mizzi is no longer a minister and the Labour Party is no longer in government. The authorities will not be able to investigate his operations in those secretive jurisdictions.
It has been two months since I revealed the existence of Mizzi’s trust and company. In those two months, he could have wound up both trust and company or set the process in motion. He has done neither. And this when he claims that they hold no assets and have no bank accounts, that the company has never traded – which means shutting the outfit down would have been straightforward. He also said that he can’t close down the company before the audit is completely. But that is so much hogwash. When companies are wound down, they don’t disappear into outer space. The records remain, and can be gone over – particularly if, as he claims, there is no money, no population of assets and no commercial activity.
Konrad Mizzi’s declaration to parliament was an insult to parliament and offensive to the electorate in general. Malta is now in the unique situation of having a cabinet minister who has a company in Panama, a New Zealand trust and in his declaration to parliament lists both - along with a total declared income of €70,000.
www.daphnecaruanagalizia.com