Information on liabilities and interests is far more important than information on assets

This kind of evasive behaviour and delaying tactic is just what Konrad Mizzi did when his Panama ploy was partly rumbled: Adrian Delia promises to publish a declaration of assets after having his financial affairs “audited by a reputable firm”.

In any case, nobody’s interested in Adrian Delia’s assets – nor those of any other contender for the Nationalist Party leadership. It’s his – and their – liabilities which are far more relevant. That’s exactly why they’re called liabilities. Chris Said and Alex Perici Calascione have published their liabilities as well as their assets. But for reasons that will by now be obvious, Frank Portelli and Adrian Delia have not.

I’m not interested in whether a party leadership contender owns a house. I’m interested in whether that house has been hypothecated in the bank’s favour, for what purpose and under what conditions. I’m not interested in whether he owns shares in a company, because I can find that out myself if the company is incorporated in Malta and not in Panama or the British Virgin Islands. I’m interested in how much money that company owes the bank, whether it can pay it back, and if so, how it plans to do so and when. I’m also interested in what that company does and what its lines of business are.

Then there are Dr Delia’s interests and those of the other leadership contenders. We don’t need a declaration of assets; we need a declaration of interests. Other parliaments ask their members to register their interests. The Maltese parliament asks for a declaration of assets. Now the leadership contenders are restricting themselves to the same thing.

Who cares if a member of parliament or a party leadership contender owns the house in which he lives? What’s far more important for the public (and parliament, where MPs are concerned) to know is what their direct, vested and indirect interests are.

We need to know what business concerns the leadership contenders are linked to by marriage, for instance. If they hold shares in a company, that’s an asset as well as an interest. If their parent-in-law or other close relative is part of a significant business, that’s not an asset but it’s certainly an interest.

Those who grew up familiar with the connections between people tend to take it for granted that “everybody knows”. But in reality, most people don’t know anything. Names are just names to them – they have no idea.

How many people know that Nationalist Party leadership contender Alex Perici Calascione is the son-in-law of one of the shareholders and directors of the very influential, in the Maltese economy, Corinthia hotels business? Not many, I’ll wager, because his wife and her parents are quiet, decent and reserved people who maintain a low profile, stay out of the social pages, and don’t flash about. Everybody knows Alfred Pisani, chairman of the business, but few people know his brother Joseph, who is Dr Perici Calascione’s father-in-law.

That’s not an asset. It’s not anything Dr Perici Calascione is obliged to list in his published declarations of assets and liabilities. But it most certainly is an interest.

Also, it is disingenuous and unhelpful when cabinet ministers and others declare their shares in or ownership of a limited liability company without giving information on what that company owns or holds. Their shares are an asset, but we need to know what their interests are via that company. Louis Grech, the former deputy prime minister, was the big expert at hiding his interest in various businesses by simply declaring his ownership of shares in a limited liability company.

Alex Perici Calascione has declared his wife’s minor shareholding in J. & H. Pisani Ltd. But he should have pointed out that J. & H. Pisani Ltd holds shares in the Corinthia Palace Hotel Co. Ltd. That’s an example of what I mean. Mrs Perici Calascione is not yet a direct or significant shareholder in the wider Corinthia business because her father, happily, is alive. But Dr Perici Calascione needs to address the issue of how he plans to handle the relationship in any future situation where the Opposition leader or Prime Minister is the son-in-law of one of the original owners/directors of the Corinthia hotels business.