In its Sunday edition, The Malta Independent published George Farrugia's statementa bout his wife and her acquaintance with the former Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi. In this interview, Farrugia exempted the former Prime Minister Gonzi from any responsibility. He made it clear that Gonzi was not au courant, as the French would say, of the oil procurement scandal.
In my opinion, the oil procurement scandal had a new twist after the The Guardian published the story of the deposits in Swiss HSBC bank. I am sure that the police investigators are checking whether there is a connection between this scandal and what The Guardian revealed; Mr Tancred Tabone holds €880,000 in two Swiss HSBC accounts. I am saying this because Mr Tabone is facing criminal investigations in relation to the oil scandal.
Many citizens are now demanding an explanation as to how Mr Tabone made all this money. I am sure that many will not believe that such money was accrued from his business selling household goods. Dr Gonzi had no nice words for Mr Tabone. He said it clearly that had he known what this man was up to, he would have sent him to prison.
Yet, the foreign media did not associate Mr Tancred Tabone with the oil scandal. To my astonishment, he was known in Switzerland as Malta’s HSBC man. The irony in all this is that in Malta, at least, judging from the past Labour propaganda, the HSBC man was the ex-nationalist Minister John Dalli. Our local political scene is always full of surprises throughout our history.
In the words of Hervé Falciani “this money comes from mafia, drug traffickers, blood". Falciani was the whistleblower who revealed the HSBC files with illegal deposits. The name of Mr Tabone was among those mentioned by Falciani.
In this context, one wonders why, in the past weeks, there were a number of individuals from the Labour camp, including Labour lawyers, who were advising for the removal of George Farrugia’s pardon. He has been defined by all and sundry as a rogue trader. Yet, in the light of these new facts, one has to ask: in whose name and interest was the plea for the removal of Farrugia’s pardon being made? It is also a legitimate question to ask whose interest was Dr Joseph Muscat defending when he asked for the revocation of the pardon? Sincerely, I hope that he was not defending Mr Tabone's interests.
Faced with such situations, I am beginning to appreciate, more and more, the new Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras and his attack on the Europe Union. European politicians knew all along about this dirt and had an interest to support and protect these account holders. All this money was being deposited in Swiss Banks with the complicity of Europe and individual States institutions. I am sure that Greece has its Tabones too. Thus, Europe cannot now go on the common people and ask them for sacrifices, as it did with Greece and will soon do with us, if our deficit continues to explode.
What Europe should do, if it is honest at all, is to legislate so that such money is returned back to the respective States and used to pay off the debts made. Finally, this is social justice. The revelations of Falciani prove that part of the debts incurred by European states, are the result of greed from a selected few. They accumulated huge fortunes, by abusing their position of trust and now, the common citizens are paying for their financial abuses.