Malta’s Financial Services Authority (MFSA) failed to provide court documents relating to the Pilatus Bank magisterial inquiry as they were hidden in an office safe, the President of NGO Repubblika Robert Aquilina said in a TV interview.
He revealed this information during the second part of the interview on NET on Tuesday evening.
This information emerged after Magistrate Ian Farrugia noticed that the MFSA failed to exhibit documents related to the capital and liquidity of Pilatus Bank in 2017, despite the order.
The documents were the internal capital adequacy assessment process (ICAAP) and the internal liquidity adequacy assessment process (ILAAP).
Following this, during a testimony that was held behind closed doors in July 2020 by MFSA officer Anthony Sacco, it then emerged that the MFSA had failed to give a copy of certain documents to Magistrate Ian Farrugia.
At this point the inquiry into the operation of Pilatus Bank had been going on since November 2018.
Aquilina said that it turned out that these documents had been kept hidden in a safe inside the office of the Head of the Banking Unit of the MFSA, to which only two MFSA officials had access: Kevin Gabarretta and Ray Vella.
The evidence reached the Investigating Magistrate only after these two officers resigned from the MFSA.
Police Commissioner Anglu Gafa, ex-deputy police commissioner Alexandra Mamo, and Attorney General Victoria Buttigieg had the report of the magisterial inquiry on their desks for 21 months, so they must have known about this for 21 months, Repubblika said in a statement.
“We expect the Police Commissioner and the Attorney General to stop dragging their feet and take concrete action sooner than later on this abuse that was revealed in these hours,” Repubblika said.
The MFSA was the first to know about the facts, therefore, Repubblika is asking whether an investigation took place and if it had what steps were taken.
“We expect the Police Commissioner and the Attorney General to inform the public why they have not yet taken steps in Court in connection with these documented facts. Our country cannot get out of the alley it entered if whoever runs its institutions continues to hide the sins committed by public officials,” Repubblika said.