What about the big fish?

Identity Malta this week went to the police and requested an investigation after it emerged that an employee had misappropriated some €25,000 at the passports unit.

According to a DOI-issued statement, the employee had admitted to the crime and offered to hand the money back on condition that the police are not involved. Authority officials, however, called the police and requested an investigation. Parliamentary Secretary Julia Farrugia Portelli declared that no abuse would be tolerated. This is all well and good. But this episode cannot but remind us that this government is strong with the weak and weak with the strong. We are referring, of course, to Panama Papers and other scandals and money laundering claims that rocked the administration throughout the last four years and dominated the electoral campaign.

While the authorities have a duty to ensure that justice is carried out across the board, and that everyone – from the lowliest employee to the top government officials – are held accountable for their actions, this is clearly not the case.

We all receive parking tickets if we park our cars badly. We all get fined if we do not pay taxes on time. The authorities are eagle-eyed and enthusiastic when it comes to such contraventions which, although small in comparison, are contraventions nonetheless, and should be punished.

But it is then unacceptable for the same authorities to turn a blind eye (or two) when senior government officials are found to have opened secret companies in shady jurisdictions, with the written intent of depositing €1 million a year.

This is not all. The Prime Minister’s righthand man is under investigation following the conclusion reached by the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit (FIAU) that in two separate cases he was involved in – the Adrian Hillman payments business and the Brian Tonna kickbacks allegations – there was reasonable suspicion of money laundering and/or the existence of proceeds of crime.

Another FIAU investigation had revealed the transfer of money linked to the LNG tanker to a company set up in Dubai for the purpose of transferring kickbacks to Schembri and Mizzi.

The police did nothing when it received these reports and the FIAU is now being purged, as a witch hunt is underway for the people who ‘leaked’ the report.

A similar thing happened in the medical visas scandal, where a senior government official is accused of taking thousands from Libyan nationals for medical visas that never materialized.

Like the police, the Prime Minister has no appetite for action and has not only refused to sack the people involved, despite the seriousness of the allegations and the damage they are causing to Malta’s name, but has also stuck his neck out for them and defended them with all his strength.

In sunny Malta, it seems, the small fish all get caught in the net, but the big ones somehow manage to get away.