Konrad Mizzi has explained what all this wealth is that he keeps telling us about

He gave an interview to Malta Today (published yesterday) and in answer to the question about what constitutes all this wealth he talks about, he said: “It’s in my declaration of assets.”

Ummm, so let’s see. That would be:

1. a flat in Sliema;

2. a house (with garage, don’t forget the garage) in London (no area code);

3. 4,000 shares in Malta International Airport;

4. 310,000 euros deposited in the banks.

That’s it. But hang on. He also owes the banks 320,000 euros. And he didn’t say whether there’s a mortgage on the house and garage in London, and a hypothec on the flat in Sliema. Because if there is – in other words, if he still owes the banks money on the purchase of the real estate or has used the house and/or flat as security for a loan, he can’t move them into a trust. The lending bank will not allow it.

And that 320,000-euro loan he’s got there tells me that yes, there’s a hypothec on at least one of his dwellings to make good for the loan.

When Malta Today asked him again what he plans on putting in his New Zealand trust – that should actually have read “his company in Panama” because the trust holds only the Panama company while the Panama company holds everything else – he said “My cash” and “my house”.

I mean, honestly. We are expected to believe that this – and here I would like to use words that are not suitable for readership of all ages and temperaments – person has set up a complicated and highly secret asset-holding structure in EU-BLACKLISTED Panama simply to hold his 310,000 euros in cash – why doesn’t he use them to pay off his stupid loan? – and a house and garage.

What does he take us for – that elderly village woman Cassar who nominated him for the deputy leadership election?

BUT THERE’S MORE. And here again Konrad Mizzi (the lying fraud) is trading on the general ignorance among the press and the people about how these things work. An asset-holding company is NOT an investment vehicle. When he transfers his 310,000 euros cash from the banks in Malta to a company in Panama he is not investing it. He is transferring ownership of the cash from himself to the company in Panama. The company then holds it in its own bank account in Panama. Why on earth would he want to do this?

Exactly, he doesn’t. And he’s not going to do it either because the banks here will not allow the transfer of that kind of sum to a Panamanian bank. And anyway, you don’t transfer money that is already declared in a Maltese or British bank to a bank account in Panama so that you can ‘invest’ it through your Panamanian company. If you want to invest your 310,000 euros, then you just do it – through Malta, not through a company in Panama.

Then there’s that house. There is only one predominant reason for setting up a company to own your house or other real estate: that decisions about it are now regulated by company law and not the Marriage Act or the laws on inheritance or co-ownership of property. If five siblings inherit a house, one of them can stop the others selling it, restoring it or dividing it into flats.

But if those five siblings inherit the shareholding of the company which owns the house, any such decision is taken by a simple majority vote of the board of directors. So if one or two siblings object to anything, the other three can over-rule them. There are other similar situations, but this is the major one. It avoids having inherited property become the subject of dispute between the heirs lasting for decades at times during which things fall to pieces.

But here’s the thing. You don’t go to Panama to set up a company to do that. You set up your company under Maltese law, and that company can even own your house in London.