The bottom line is: there are only six Maltese PEPs owning companies in the Panama Papers

Published: May 10, 2016 at 1:08am

Five of them are linked directly to Joseph Muscat/his chief of staff, and the other was given an amnesty on his hidden $3.2 million by Muscat’s government in 2013.

The six Maltese PEPs who own companies in the Panama Papers – companies not necessarily in Panama but also in the British Virgin Islands – are:

1. government minister Konrad Mizzi;

2. Sai Mizzi Liang, who is a PEP twice over, in her own right as an envoy of the Maltese government, and as the wife of a government minister;

3. Keith Schembri, the Prime Minister’s chief of staff;

4. Malcolm Scerri, who manages the business interests of a PEP (Keith Schembri) which makes him a PEP himself;

5. Brian Tonna, a close business associate and adviser to the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, the Prime Minister, and a senior minister, who also has a desk at the Office of the Prime Minister;

6. former Nationalist government minister Ninu Zammit, who hid $3.2 million in Switzerland behind the backs of Prime Ministers Fenech Adami and Lawrence Gonzi, his cabinet colleagues (with the possible exception of Michael Falzon, who did the same thing and probably knew what Zammit was up to) and the electorate, but who was then – inexplicably – given an amnesty by the incoming Muscat government in 2013, when you would have expected Labour to parade him about town as a cheating and corrupt Nationalist minister instead, which of course begs the question of what the Labour Party got from Ninu Zammit.

No wonder the Labour trolls – particularly those operating out of the Office of the Prime Minister and the offices of the General Workers Union newspapers – are so disappointed tonight. No Nationalist ministers, no Nationalist MPs, no Nationalist anything. Not even Labour names – except for those directly linked to Muscat and his chief of staff.

Konrad Mizzi is the only Maltese elected politician in the Panama Papers, other than former Nationalist minister Ninu Zammit, who was given an amnesty by Muscat's government on his $3.2 million hidden in Switzerland through a BVI company.

Konrad Mizzi is the only Maltese elected politician in the Panama Papers, other than former Nationalist minister Ninu Zammit, who was given an amnesty by Muscat’s government on his $3.2 million hidden in Switzerland through a BVI company.