The road ahead
The global financial watchdog’s decision to grey list Malta on Wednesday came as no surprise to anyone. The writing was on the wall.
Despite the government’s best efforts to lobby in Malta’s favour, and despite the positive reforms carried out over the past months with regards to anti-money laundering legislation, it is clear that Malta is not yet trusted internationally in this field.
We do not wish to play the blame game, but some things cannot be left unsaid. What happened on Wednesday was the result of years of wrong decisions, failure to act and hard-headedness.
In accepting the ‘ unjust’ FATF verdict, Prime Minister Robert Abela conceded that episodes like the Panama Papers and other scandals certainly did not help Malta’s case.
The truth is that, under Joseph Muscat’s stewardship, Malta was anything but the best in Europe, or the world. Despite all the claims that the international community was being unfair towards Malta, it is now clearer than ever that Muscat’s administration messed up big time, and the real repercussions are now really starting to be felt.
All the reforms in our national financial institutions were not enough to convince some FATF members that Malta is fit to play on the big stage. It was made clear to us that we must pay for our transgressions and that there is so much more that we have to do to get out of this pickle – a job which mainly involves cleaning up our reputation.
The government did well to accept the verdict and to pledge that we will continue reforming our system in the coming months. But a golden opportunity was missed when the PM shunned the Opposition Leader’s offer to help.
Bernard Grech, in a conciliatory tone, said on Wednesday that a national task force should be set up to ensure that Malta makes its way back on the the FATF white list. But instead of taking up the offer, the PM tried to ridicule Grech, insisting that such a task force already exists. This from a PM who only a few minutes earlier had said that we must work in the spirit of ‘Team Malta.’
It is evident that, despite its best efforts, the task force failed to convince those who needed convincing. We must now look ahead, and what we need to pass the next FATF test is to show that this is a united country that genuinely wants to abandon the bad ways of the past and to move towards a better regulated future.
The government must take heed of all the suggestions that are being made to ensure that Malta ditches its bad reputation once and for all. These include scrapping our citizenship for sale scheme, which has been a bone of contention for many years and has now brought us into trouble with the European Commission.
The authorities must ensure that the political bigwigs who were associated with corruption and money laundering are properly and fully investigated. Money laundering prosecutions cannot remain reserved to businesspeople and normal citizens. The fact that one of the most controversial political figures in recent times still has a seat in Parliament does not bode well for the country.
It is easy to pinpoint those who were responsible for our current predicament, but our efforts now must be directed at getting out of this situation, not only for the sake of passing the next FATF assessment, but also because having strong authorities and regulations and having an economy that is built on honest foundations is what we all deserve.