GUEST POST/This is about the corrupt few – politicians turned international criminals

Sent in by Ms BShorta:

The Panamanian corporations set up secretly by the Prime Minister’s chief of staff and his sidekick minister weren’t set up to produce any goods or to provide work for Panamanian workers. Hence, there was no need to invest a sizeable chunk of money in them. They were just hollow shells for the Chinese, the Jordanians, the Azerbaijanis and a raft of corruption operators to drop money in them by the millions.

The standard rate for kickbacks in international underhand dealings is 10%. That’s a lot of money to squeeze into the Prime Minister’s attache case as he goes through the airport’s VIP lounge.

Of course they didn’t report the set-up to the Maltese tax authorities. There would have been no purpose in nesting in Panama if this wasn’t an attempt to run away from the glare of Malta’s fiscal authorities, the police and anti-money-laundering investigators.

A number of readers have said that trading from Panama is extremely difficult because it gets the cold shoulder from the EU and North America. But for the Prime Minister’s henchmen it would not have been difficult at all. The money is already parked in Panama and all it takes to bring it back to sunny Malta is for the Prime Minister to grant another amnesty on the repatriation of funds. That would make the transfer from Panama to Malta easy.

I wish that a number of readers of this website would stop comparing the Nationalist Party to the Labour Party on money-laundering. This isn’t about the political parties or their numerous members who are people of utmost integrity and who wish the best for their families and our country. This is about the corrupt few, politicians turned international criminals – or should that be criminals turned politicians – who use their high public office to launder their 10% at the expense of our pensioners, our workers, and our children who will be burdened with paying back for all this for many years to come.

Of course, the Prime Minister and his immediate colleagues are now like rabbits caught in the headlamps. The wheels of justice grind slowly. But they grind. Let their story be a moral lesson for us all.