Dr Busuttil, call a spade a spade

Declaration to parliament for 2003

Declaration to parliament for 2004

Declaration to parliament for 2005 – Ninu Zammit

Declaration to parliament for 2006

On Times of Malta’s online edition:

Dr Busuttil said the suspension was precisely that – a suspension – and if the former ministers cleared their name they would be accepted back in the party.

For God’s sake, how can they clear their name? The wrong-doing has been committed, is not disputed, was admitted by the ministers themselves in statements to the media, and one of them has even said that he was given an amnesty by this government.

Their declarations of assets, made to parliament, are right there in black on white. I haven’t seen Michael Falzon’s but I have seen some of Ninu Zammit’s. Year on year, he lists no more than Lm2,000 in bank deposits at HSBC in Malta and no other deposits anywhere else.

Their income tax returns for every year they were in parliament (and for one year thereafter) are available to the Opposition leader by the simple expedient of requesting them from the Speaker who is then obliged to request them from the Commissioner for Revenue. This is under the Income Tax (Management) Act.

But none of that is even necessary because they themselves have said that they parked the money in Switzerland and did not declare it to the authorities in Malta.

And this even when they were government ministers.

There is no room for equivocation here. The situation is clear-cut. Cut them loose, regain the moral high ground and let Joseph Muscat stand knee-deep in the mire with them and Saviour Balzan, tweeting in defence of cabinet ministers who conceal their millions, whether ill-gotten gains or not, from the taxman who implements the very laws they made.

Clearing their name does not come into it. These are not legalistic issues and this is not a court of law. Their issues never will, in fact, go to court because at least one of them has been given an amnesty and we are to assume that the other has, too.

This is exactly the kind of legalistic quibbling that did for Lawrence Gonzi in the end: the complete and utter difficulty lawyers have in leaving their lawyer’s mental tools in the box where they belong when they are politicians.