It is unbelievable that the country had to come to know that the director of the Financial Intelligence Unit, Dr Manfred Galdes, had resigned not from official sources such as the Ministry of Finance or the DOI itself but through blogger Daphne Caruana Galizia. And that it then turns out the news is all true.

In many other countries the powers that be would have realized that such news has to be issued by the persons or institutions themselves rather than the news is broken by others.

The Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit is the government agency responsible for the collection, collation, processing, analysis and dissemination of information in the fight against money-laundering and terrorism funding. It is constituted under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act in Maltese law, and is responsible, too, for monitoring compliance under anti-money-laundering laws.

Malta’s financial services sector is a relatively big sector and growing all the time. Malta, like any Eurozone member state is under continuous pressure to improve its defences against money laundering and any taint of corruption. It is in Malta’s national interest to be seen as not letting up in this ongoing battle.

The resignation of Dr Galdes is thus national news. It will also be noticed in other jurisdictions and in the rest of the European Union and questions will inevitably be asked.

It will not be enough for these doubters to be fobbed off with what the government told and tried to fob off the Maltese: that Dr Galdes resigned to join a private company. The directorship of FIAU is not like a bus driver’s seat: the driver is free to descend and will be substituted by another driver.

The director of FIAU is appointed by the government (and properly handed his resignation to his superior) and not by Parliament as in the case eg of the Auditor General or the Ombudsman but there is no reason why Parliament, specifically the Public Accounts Committee) should not formally ask to hear out what Dr Galdes has to say.

Or else Dr Galdes is urged to become a whistleblower and get protected in terms of the Whistleblower Act.

During his term as FIAU director, Dr Galdes supervised an investigation lasting several months investigating the two men closest to the Prime Minister: his chief of staff and his de facto energy minister.

During these investigations much ground will have been gone over and many files accumulated. Can the public be assured these documents and proofs will now be kept in a safe place and not tampered with?

There is a strange coincidence of dates to take into account: the FIAU chief had scheduled a meeting with the Police Commissioner, Michael Cassar, at which he had formally presented him with files of documents and the results of the FIAU investigation into the illicit activities of the Prime Minister’s chief of staff and the Energy/Health Minister, for prosecution.

Just two days after he received the files containing the results of the FIAU investigation into Konrad Mizzi, Keith Schembri and their associates, the Police Commissioner took holiday leave and some days later formally presented his resignation “on health grounds”.

The real reason, some police sources are reported to say, is that Mr Cassar did not want to deal with the police investigation and prosecution of the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, the Energy and Health Minister and their associates, but having been formally requested to do so by the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit, he was in a quandary which he ‘solved’ by resigning from the post he had held for just 18 months. Again, Mr Cassar is asked to deny or comment on this allegation.

Commissioner Cassar was then replaced by the present Commissioner, Lawrence Cutajar. Again, it is a question of dates: Mr Cutajar’s rather hurried appointment coincided, or did it not, with the news about Dr Galdes’s resignation.

Nothing is simple in Malta.