Not “popular” but infamous is more correct.

You knew that you would be forced to declare your assets, opening up your private life to speculation, and possibly investigation of amounts which just don’t make sense.

If you really have ‘only’ EUR500k in cash, the whole reason they are so, is to remain ‘untraceable’, so why did you let the cat out of the bag, when you knew people where going to ask you questions about that amount, even if you say they came from heaven.

The only reason I could possibly come up with, is that you stand to gain far more, than if you stayed put or you are being threatened to do so by some of your clients or by politicians. We now know you put Dr. Cardona to head the prison board. Is the matter going to become worse and more entangled and is all this matter and murders all related?

You owe us all a lot of answers as their are too many coincidences.

But finally, WHO on earth made you do it and WHY?

…. or, maybe he’ll claim the ” property ” was somewhere overseas …..

Ma jahsibx il Prim Ministru li ghandu jerfa irresponsabilita tieghu u jidhol fil-fond fuq dan il kaz u jitlob irrezenja tal- ministru Mallia sakemm issir investigazzjoni serja min nies newtrali li ma ghandhom l-ebda konflit ta’ interess.

However the major concern is that this undermined the primary scope of such assets/income declarations.

If from day one ANY politician is declaring a massive amount as cash in hand – that are not corroborated (since obviously nobody has to date viewed or counted them) – this could provide the opportunity for the said (could be Mallia or anyone else for that matter) politician to eventually accept the same amount as bribe or illicit gain whilst in office, without raising any suspicions over such injection – since it would be equivalent to the original alleged cash funds.

In this regard, if any semblace of the checks & balances that such declarations are intended for are to be maintained, any such cash funds needs to be verified simultaneously by the NAO and the Inland Revenue. The former to verify the physical existence and the latter to verify that the aggregate accumulation of wealth tallies with the historic declared income and inflows including the cost of the particular politician’s lifestyle.

In fact the latter exercise should be conducted for a sample (if not all) of elected politicians – and hopefully it would keep a number of sharks (with apologies to the fin species) away from parliament!