Jurisdictions under increased monitoring are actively working with the FATF to address strategic deficiencies in their regimes to counter money laundering, terrorist financing, and proliferation financing. When the FATF places a jurisdiction under increased monitoring, it means the country has committed to resolve swiftly the identified strategic deficiencies within agreed timeframes and is subject to increased monitoring. This list is often externally referred to as the “grey list”.

Malta is now on the grey-list of countries that can be trusted for safe investment and business services.  The Financial Action Task Force made up of a whole host of nations, examined Malta’s current realities regarding security and risks and came to the decision, still to be ratified, that there are sufficient concerns to set it aside from the serious and safe countries and put it on the grey list.

From now on, investors, financial services companies, banks and other institutions will have to take account of Malta’s reputation before placing their confidence and shareholder’s capital into a new venture in Malta.

In addition, overall trading for our country and its business community will become tenuous internationally.  More checks, more demands for transparency, security and less freedom to grow and invest in a healthy environment.

In the press conference with Prime Minister Robert Abela, Clyde Caruana downplayed concerns, saying that any effects will not be felt overnight. “What we are speaking about is a process that the country will be following to address some shortcomings.”

Here the problem lies.  In the mind of both the PM and the Finance Minister, authority is wrong and authority does not know.  Malta, they sense, is a victim of false ideas. 

How many parents have gone to their children’s teachers and protested against what they felt were unjust grades or punishments?  The same mentality prevails here.  Instead of seeking to really examine the reasons behind the FATF decision and making extra sure to bring them into the light and seriously tackle the challenge to restore Malta’s reputation of previous years, it takes offence and minimizes the cost and remains in denial.

Joseph Muscat took for granted Malta’s good name.  He had the impression that whatever he did, nothing could be bigger than him.  He could front any attacks, deal with any lobbies, set up powerful cabals and continue popping the champagne. 

Moreover, he used that name, history and political art as a commodity, to convert it into personal wealth and a plan to go rogue with the blessing of the authorities. 

It failed.  It didn’t work except for him and those around him who managed to make off with the millions that belong to the nation and its people. 

For the time being, the getaway plan holds.  A year into his job as Commissioner of Police, Gafa is still under the illusion that justice is being done. 

No, Commissioner.  Take a look at the FATF grey-listing of Malta and any illusion you have that institutions work and that justice has been done can become the joke of the day. 

Robert Abela too, needs to take a reality check.  Same frame of mind that he had in Summer of 2020, whilst licking his ice-cream in Ragusa and Malta becoming a Coronavirus top listing.  He believes his homework is well done but badly marked.  As it happens, there are enough students around him to support his view. 

Isn’t there ever anyone in the Civil Service and the Cabinet to actually present facts to the PM and help him to understand the difference between Muscat’s continuation and the need to take responsibility and ensure that corruption is not just a short-coming?

So, your kid steals his friend’s lunch, bullies him and then walks off laughing and you dismiss the behaviour as a childish short-coming?  Later on, he gathers more boys around him and moves on to stealing the boy’s mobile phone and actually attacking him physically.  Still, the kid is not punished or made to see his bad behaviour because he is the son of some Minister. 

And so the story goes on.  The Malta Story has a totally different meaning now.  Anyone who watched Vincenzo on Netflix will immediately understand how our country’s name is now associated, in the underworld of Mafia and Consigliere. 

It is common place now for producers and writers to associate Malta with the world of organized crime.  Perhaps the Prime Minister should set up a task force, other than the one he believes he has, to get to the bottom of why countries like America and Germany are looking at a different score sheet.  Countries who are part of organisations that protect against money-laundering, rule of law, freedom of speech, justice and transparency, will study reports and actions taken by international bodies and weigh them up against the intentions and progress demonstrated by the fellow member.

They take media seriously.  They can easily see that One TV is simply a biased organ for false information and propaganda.  They have noted the acclamations of people like Jason Micallef, of the Speaker of the House, of the Ombudsman and the Standards Commissioner, the time when Malta was President of the European Union, or when a journalist got murdered on contract.  They see that Egrant is still an open case, the way whistle-blowers are treated and that Panama account holders were never condemned by the party and the government.  The Pilatus bank remains like a putrid lake of rotting branches. 

Apart from all this, Malta’s politics do not fit with a democratic order.  Until Abela gets that into his head, nothing will change.  It is not the international order that has to conform to Labour’s corrupt politics but for the government he leads to step up, order a complete overhaul of Labour’s mandate, call on those who are responsible for where we are today to immediately resign and once that is done, to call an election. 

Muscat had called the election early in 2017 because he saw that information could be revealed that would completely threaten his re-election.   Abela now can see that information revealed has threatened the livelihood and success of our country, its future and its significance not just in Europe but around the world.  Until he acknowledges that and wakes up out of his fairytale we will continue to be in the table of countries that are grey-listed.

When it came to dealing with Covid the people started to take things in their own hands because they saw that the Prime Minister was still paddling his toes in the sea.  Unfortunately, this economic situation now is beyond the control of the people.  Other than at election time. 

There comes a tipping point.  The ordinary voter may not really pay too much attention to the news of the grey-listing.  Until, that is, they are frustrated by their inability to do business as they thought they would, until finding a job other than begging the Minister or enrolling in the GWU schemes is practically non-existent and realizing that they have zero skills to face the new world we live in and that Malta has now disappeared from the map.  Green or grey, makes no difference.