Socialist MEP Ana Gomes, who is also vice chair on the PANA committee, told The Malta Independent that the Konrad Mizzi situation is not only embarrassing for Malta, but also for Europe, since he chairs the Energy Council.

The European Parliament’s Committee of Inquiry into Money Laundering, Tax Avoidance and Tax Evasion, known as PANA, held a string of meetings in Malta last Monday, interviewing, among others, No Portfolio Minister Konrad Mizzi following revelations that he had opened a company in the secretive jurisdiction of Panama. Minister Mizzi’s situation was not the only topic on the agenda for the committee.

Asked for her impression on Minister Konrad Mizzi, Ana Gomes (below) told this newsroom that if she had had the opportunity to speak with minister Konrad Mizzi after his meeting with the PANA Committee, she would have asked him: “why don’t you resign in order to stop embarrassing your government?”

 “We greeted each other on the way in, but when the meeting ended there was some confusion and he disappeared.”

She said that the explanations he provided in response to the committee’s questions did not match other elements that the committee had before them.

The MEP explained that Minister Mizzi stated he established his company and trust to protect his family’s wealth, “but then why go to Panama and New Zealand, when he lives in Malta, where the government promotes investment into Malta namely for tax and wealth protection purposes?”

“The way he was speaking made him and his wife out to be defenceless people, yet his wife is the Consul General in Shanghai. It didn’t make sense.”

“He said that he did this according to advice he received from his legal advisors, which is ridiculous. What he said does not match information which appeared in the Panama Papers regarding the opening of the company and trust, which show something along the lines of them being used for recycling and remote gaming etc,” she said.

She also made reference to reports about the Panama Paper emails, that Minister Mizzi’s company was to operate in the fields of remote gaming and recycling. “What he said does not match information which appeared in the Panama Papers regarding the opening of the company and trust, which show something along the lines of them being used for recycling and remote gaming etc,” she said.

“Why hasn’t he resigned? Why hasn’t he been demoted?”

She said that both Minister Konrad Mizzi, and his wife Sai, are very savvy, and that there was no credibility in what he told the Committee.

She also highlighted another suspicious situation regarding the privatisation deal of three hospitals, which saw Vitals Global Healthcare take over St Luke’s Hospital, the Gozo General Hospital and Karen Grech hospital. She said that the transfer was made, while he was still Health Minister, to a company with “no prior experience in the sector ultimately owned by a company in the British Virgin Islands. If this was done by a right-wing government I would be outraged, let alone a socialist government. I believe this requires a proper investigation. In addition, the documents provided by the Maltese government on this are incomplete with a number of redactions.”

Reports have read, with regards to the Remote Gaming and Recycling situation, that Minister Mizzi told the committee that it was the result of confusion on the part of his advisers, and that Nexia BT must have attributed things to him that were meant for Mr Schembri.

Following the meeting with the PANA committee last Monday, Minister Konrad Mizzi was questioned by the press, and said that there was no corruption anywhere, and provided the committee an audit report about his New Zealand Trust and Panama company. The audit, he said, showed that no funds passed through the structures. He held that his company was for family estate planning.

He had said that the press often quoted a company acquisition document which read that the company was for management consultancy and brokerage. “This was an abstract from the memorandum and articles and is something that is standard for most shelf companies. The moment I settled the company in the Trust, I changed it, and the objectives of estate planning were clear throughout.”