Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi will pay a fine for breaching the tax law, and no further action will be taken against him, Prime Minister Joseph Muscat said today.
Asked whether Dr Mizzi should shoulder political responsibility, Dr Muscat said that Dr Mizzi had rectified the situation.
Yesterday, the minister admitted to having breached the tax law when he did not inform the Commissioner of Inland Revenue after setting up a trust in New Zealand.
Questioned by journalists this morning, the Prime Minister said that Opposition Leader Simon Busuttil lacked credibility because he had failed to repeat the allegations he had made in Parliament about Dr Mizzi outside the House. Whatever is said in Parliament is protected by parliamentary privilege and no legal action can be taken.
Dr Muscat said he would not go to the protest against corruption being organised by the Nationalist Party on Sunday because Dr Busuttil lacked credibility on the issue.
Asked by The Malta Independent why Dr Mizzi had closed the company in Panama even though he (Dr Muscat) had seen nothing wrong with the move, the Prime Minister said that Dr Mizzi had listened to what the people were saying.
He said that Dr Mizzi could have made a better choice on setting up a company in Panama, but seeing the doubts that this situation had led to, he closed it down.
He urged journalists to investigate if there had been MPs who had not declared their assets in foreign countries.
Asked if he could guarantee there were no similar cases involving other Labour MPs, he said that as far as he knew, they had declared everything in their declaration of assets to Parliament.
Dr Muscat also defended his chief of staff Keith Schembri, who has also admitted to having set up a company in Panama. He said Mr Schembri was a successful person before entering politics. He said that he would have been thrown into an awkward situation if Mr Schembri had entered politics to become rich, which was not the case. "I would have been uncomfortable if it had been someone unknown who had entered politics to make money," he said.
Reacting, Opposition Leader wrote in a tweet that Dr Muscat had missed the opportunity to come clean.