Finance Minister Edward Scicluna was being most disingenuous on Monday when he rose in Parliament in an attempt to chastise this newspaper for apparently having had the audacity to have exposed a Maltese banking institution for throwing both caution and due diligence to the wind in return for business from dubious quarters.

The minister suggested that this newspaper, instead of publishing last Sunday, should have taken the information in its possession to the police or to the Financial Intelligence and Analysis Unit (FIAU) so that the appropriate action could be taken.

The very irony of that statement is that the information revealed last Sunday should have already been available to the minister himself. 

As reported, this newspaper holds a series of documents, part of which concerns the waiving of or the lax due diligence processes employed by the bank in question in favour of accepting what is undoubtedly lucrative yet questionable business from our neighbours in the war-torn and terrorist-infested Libya.

And as also reported on Wednesday by our sister daily newspaper, that particular section of information published last Sunday involved grave concerns raised by the FIAU itself. 

What is even more ironic is that the FIAU’s members are appointed by none other than the Finance Minister himself - with a member each being selected from the offices of the Attorney General, the Governor of the Central Bank, the chairman of the Malta Financial Services Authority and the Commissioner of Police.

While this newspaper is unaware of how often the minister is briefed on situations the FIAU is grappling with and the issues of serious concern that have come to its attention, it would be most concerning indeed if Prof. Scicluna was not aware of this particular situation.

As such, not only should the minister, in his official capacity, have been well aware of exactly what this newspaper was reporting, he should have also raised some alarm bells himself, and not only because the government is the bank’s largest single shareholder and the entity responsible for appointing its chairperson.  In fact, the chairman himself was beyond any doubt aware of the situation and if the concerns being raised by the authorities were not being reported back to the finance minister, one could easily venture to guess these shenanigans were taking place behind his back.

Back to Monday’s parliamentary outburst.  That day, which happened to be World Press Freedom Day of all days, the professor went to lengths in his attempt to school this newspaper on the damage that could be caused to the country and its financial system by having reported on an issue that is, in our view, entirely in the national interest and of serious national concern.

The press is free, Prof. Scicluna said, but it must also be responsible.  We can assure the finance minister that we take our responsibilities very seriously indeed, and it was not without any small amount of internal debate over our responsibility to the nation – and not to the government or a commercial enterprise – that this newspaper took the weighty decision to begin publishing the information that has been in our possession for some time now.

Issues such as money laundering and doing business with Libya raise huge concerns, Prof. Scicluna said, and they are concerns that could affect the bank, and the country, on an international level.  This much is true, but at the end of the day there is a lot more to this story than perhaps what currently meets the eye.  The bank, well attuned as it must be such considerations, really should have taken these possible repercussions into consideration before it turned a blind eye to where its newfound business was coming from.

The clichéd adage of ‘don’t shoot the messenger’ comes to mind in this context.

Additionally, this newspaper also must note that it is not only the Maltese authorities who are aware of the situation and who are seriously concerned over the bank’s conduct in its acceptance of business from Libya.

Just as Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri very likely never imagined that their international financial adventures would have been exposed as they were by the sudden onslaught of the Panama Papers, so too with the bank.  These things somehow have a way of coming out and coming back to haunt, all in their own good time.

This newspaper takes exception to the minister’s comments in its regard and it stiffens its resolve.   The issue is entirely in the national interest, and considering the hotbed of terrorism activity that Libya has become and the billions of questionably-sourced euros seeking safe havens in reputable jurisdictions like Malta, the issue is not only a national one, but also a European and global security concern.