Rumours were rife yesterday that embattled Energy Minister Konrad Mizzi was going to tender his resignation after the huge outcry over his holdings in Panama. He did not. Dr Mizzi instead passed the buck onto the Prime Minister, and said that he would leave the decision about his political future to him. He also went on to say that he could feel the general public’s anger, and that he was troubled by internal conflict, but he simply shifted responsibility.
It is becoming abundantly clear that he knows what should happen, but will not rise to the occasion and do the honourable thing. He could even have suspended himself from his ministerial position until more investigations take place. But no.
The way this should have happened was that Dr Mizzi should have offered his resignation, allowing the government he so believes in to get on with what it is supposed to be doing, instead of fending off public anger and increasing international speculation. But then again, we have already been through this when a minister’s driver fired shots at a car because of a broken wing mirror.
The pressure was ramped up when the opposition presented a motion of no confidence in the government. Some described the move as a case of political opportunism, but there can be no doubt that the opposition has its finger firmly on the nation’s pulse.
With its no confidence motion, the opposition is reflecting the feeling out there – many diehard Labourites are feeling betrayed while the so-called switchers of the 2013 general election are feeling more than a little hard done by their own choices.
The national feeling is, at the very least, that Energy and Health Minister Konrad Mizzi needs to go and one is hard pressed to find anyone – outside of those in government, those employed by the government or others with some other kind of mind-numbing vested interest – who does not think that Dr Mizzi should be shown the door, and right away at that.
Prime Minister Joseph Muscat has said he is listening closely to public sentiment on this one, a veritable laughing stock of a comment and one that appears to be setting the stage for him to cut Konrad loose.
But, Mr Prime Minister, the fact of the matter is that if you were truly listening to public sentiment you would have taken action against your minister a long time ago, and your failure to do so speaks volumes.
Not only did the Prime Minister fail to censure Dr Mizzi in any way, shape or form but he has let the beleaguered minister carry on as though it is business as usual for weeks on end. And finally push came to shove and the minister’s name, and Malta’s name along with it, has been dragged through the international press in the wake of last Sunday’s release of the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’ Panama Papers.
What has been released so far is a damning indictment on the minister and, lest we forget, the Prime Minister’s other wing man, his chief of staff Keith Schembri. Not only has it been confirmed that the pair worked in tandem as far as their dubious and highly suspicious offshore set ups are concerned, but they also apparently sought to open up bank accounts in Dubai and/or Panama to complement their offshore companies and trusts.
The Prime Minister would have been well-advised to have taken some form of action with respect to Dr Mizzi before that push came to shove – but, as we all know, there has been no sacking and no investigation. In fact, as far as the Prime Minister is concerned the country is expected to wait even more weeks for the conclusions of financial audits that the minister has requested in his respect from Malta’s taxman and from a still unnamed ‘international’ firm – knowing full well that no audit could ever uncover with any degree of certainty the full extent of the shady world of hidden funds as exposed by the Panama Papers.
The fact that there will forever be this question mark over Dr Mizzi’s affairs renders his position completely untenable, and the tenability of a government that defends him to the last is also resultantly untenable. But in the face of all this, the government continues attempting to ignore this nasty situation in the vain hope that it will go away.
And in the meantime the fact that absolutely no action has been taken by the government – apart from a couple of desperate face-saving libel suits filed by the minister against this and another newspaper – is utterly deplorable. This, perhaps even more than the Panamagate scandal itself, is what is angering the people out there to such an extent.
The Panamagate scandal will not go away - not even if Dr Mizzi were to resign this morning, not even if he were to commit hari-kari on the footsteps of Castile.
Malta’s name has suffered possibly irreparable damage. For a country that has worked so long and so hard to build its financial services sector, this kind of link with the Mossack Fonseca Panama Papers could be crippling. And still the government has taken no action.
Through its no confidence motion the Opposition has, at the very least, made it clear that it is only the government and its naïve supporters, and not the people of this country, who are onboard the Panama express and condone such actions by a sitting minister and a Prime Minister’s chief of staff.