The concerning fact that half the staff at the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit had tendered their resignation over the course of the last legislature, between 10 March 2013 and 2 June 2017, came to light on Tuesday through a Parliamentary Question.

In the private sector, if a company is bought out, is placed under new management and half of its staff resign, the new management would certainly have a good reason to be concerned unless, of course, it was happy to see the backs of those employees for one reason or another.

Matters become more concerning when such a situation is transposed to a state institution, and more concerning still considering that this particular state institution is tasked with undertaking extremely sensitive investigations into financial crimes including money laundering and the financing of terrorism.

That ante is upped further still considering the fact that people in the highest echelons of power in the government were themselves shown to have been employing some very dubious personal financial machinations since taking office in March 2013, and that they have actually been investigated by that institution.

As such, the situation is quite concerning irrespective of whether those resignations were completely voluntary in nature or whether a purge had been carried out in the wake of the 2013 general election.

Over the last legislature Malta witnessed the onslaught of the Panama Papers and all that was exposed vis-à-vis two of the Prime Minister’s top and most trusted people – his chief of staff and one of his chief ministers.

This has all been well documented by the media and, it seems, by the people at the FIAU for in the meantime it transpires that staff had drawn up reports on these two high-ranking government officials. 

Those reports had levelled some very serious accusations toward these two individuals – from money laundering to commissions on the sale of Maltese citizenship and from kickbacks on the part sale of Enemalta to kickbacks related to the new power station.

Those reports never saw the light of day for one reason or another – either they were not followed up by the police who were tasked with taking those investigations further, or they never even made it out of the FIAU’s own offices.

It is not known if any of those people who resigned under the new government had any hand in drafting the reports in question. Very little information in fact had been given by the finance minister in his answer on Tuesday, just the bare minimum necessary - the number of resignations and the confirmation that the resignations had come about over the last four years.

Some pertinent questions at this stage are:

When, exactly, were the resignations tendered?

Were these voluntary resignations or were they forced resignations?

If voluntary, what reasons were given?                    

What was the Unit’s typical staff turnover before 2013?

There are of course myriad reasons for resignations from any company, authority, agency or body but the fact that half the staff resigned over this timeframe, and against this backdrop of the Panama Papers inspired investigations, does very little by way of instilling the faith that is needed in the country’s institutions.

Furthermore, it is not as though the FIAU is a politically motivated or politically staffed entity and as such resignations after a simple change in government do not appear to have been a driving force behind the exodus.  The FIAU is autonomous in its task to prevent money laundering and the financing of terrorism – things that the government itself obviously has no hand in whatsoever – mainly by following up suspicious transactions flagged by financial institutions.

There is as good deal of speculation at the moment - unhealthy speculation considering the battering many of the country’s institutions have taken lately - on the reasons behind those resignations and that speculation will undoubtedly continue until some proper explanations are provided.