“At least eight banks in Central America refused to open an account for Mr Schembri and Mr Mizzi. The banks didn’t want their money.”
Frank Psaila, who produces and hosts Iswed Fuq L-Abjad on Net TV (Wednesdays at 9pm), asked Neil Chenoweth, the journalist who wrote extensively about the Panama Papers for The Australian Financial Review, for a comment on the matter for tonight’s edition.
Chenoweth replied as follows, emphasising that it is his persona view. The comment is already reported on Net News ahead of the show.
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At least eight banks in Central America refused to open an account for Mr Schembri and Mr Mizzi’s companies. The banks didn’t want their money. This included banks with some of the worst records in the world for money laundering, and even they found the Malta political links too much to stomach.
The banks didn’t think this was fake news. Neither did New Zealand. This is really about leadership.
When I revealed on April 10* the email trail that led to Mr Cini setting up New Zealand trusts for Mr Schembri and Mr Mizzi, the next morning the New Zealand prime minister, John Key, announced an inquiry into foreign trusts. That led to New Zealand changing the law for foreign trusts last year.
So they’re grateful to Malta, for showing what was wrong with their system. And they fixed it.
New Zealand cared about its reputation. Even Mossack Fonseca’s tame banks cared about their reputations.
In Malta the government has done nothing. For me that says everything about how the rest of the world will see Malta, and how little the government cares.
Neil Chenoweth