Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has vehemently denied claims that he or any member of his family has or has had a secret offshore company or bank account, in any jurisdiction. During the Labour Party Annual General Meeting, he also addressed the PL's members and categorically denied the claims.

He was taking comments after a Socialist and Democrat meeting in Malta on the role of the presidency and the future of the EU.

Dr Muscat, when asked why the change in strategy from pretending that The Malta Independent columnist Daphne Caruana Galizia does not exist to outright addressing and denying her claims, even at the Labour Party AGM, he said that “it was a mistake”. In the past, the government strategy was to completely ignore Mrs Caruana Galizia and any claims she makes on her blog.

The PM was reacting to recent reports by blogger and journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia, who claims to know who the owner of the third Panamanian company – Egrant – is. She also claimed that she is aware of large sums of money were moved to bank accounts held by Heanville Inc and other companies. Mrs Caruana Galizia further alleged that in September 2015, Minister Mizzi visited Pilatus Bank in Ta’ Xbiex, and that the bank was set up after 2013 in order to facilitate such transactions.

She also alleged through the publication of an image that it could be the Prime Minister’s wife, or a family member of the Prime Minister that owned the elusive third company.

Allegations about who owned Egrant had been rife since the Panama Papers scandal broke. One year after the scandal came to light, Dr Muscat said it was a mistake to remain quiet in the wake of insinuations that he was linked with the company, and that it was actually Brian Tonna of corporate service provision company Nexia BT who acquired it as a shelf company.

Panama Papers refers to the leak of 11.5 million documents showing the dealings between Panama based law firm Mossack Fonseca and its clients. Panama is an extremely secretive financial jurisdiction and the leak exposed how the world’s elite concealed their wealth for avoid tax, evade tax, while outright criminals used such services to launder money.

Minister Konrad Mizzi and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri had been named in the scandal for having secret Panama companies, no concrete wrongdoing has been found but the EU’s PANA committee said that it looked like a “classic case of money laundering”.

When asked how the Prime Minister has any credibility to talk about offshore companies, since his closest two men, Minister Konrad Mizzi and chief of staff Keith Schembri had been caught with such structures but retained their positions close to the government, Dr Muscat chose to attack the Times of Malta. Instead of answering the question, he questioned how the newspaper has any credibility about transparency when it failed to publish an internal report into the allegations about former managing director Adrian Hillman.

Mrs Caruana Galizia had alleged that Mr Hillman and Mr Schembri had orchestrated kickbacks, which led to the resignation of Mr Hillman and an inquiry being drawn up into the matter. The inquiry is concluded and Mr Hillman has not returned to his post. 

PN Leader offers "protection" to whistleblowers

Nationalist Party Leader Simon Busuttil this morning made an appeal to any members of the public to come forward with information on Egrant, or any of the other companies named in the Panama Papers scandal. He said that the PN would protect anybody who spoke up.

He appealed for anyone with information about transactions made about “this network of criminality in Castille [the Office of the Prime Minister]” to come forward. He asked whistleblowers to “do the right thing” by relaying any relevant information.

 

Dr Busuttil was speaking at a press conference this morning.