Former ministers have to account for source of Swiss funds: Lawrence Gonzi

Former ministers Michael Falzon and Ninu Zammit must account (publicly) for the source of the funds deposited in their secret bank accounts in Switzerland, former prime minister Lawrence Gonzi has told The Malta Independent.

Telling the public that they have now regularised their position is not enough, he told the newspaper.

Compare Gonzi’s proper reply to Muscat’s shocking one in the post immediately before this one.

Ninu Zammit was a minister in Prime Minister Gonzi’s cabinet for the four years between 2004 and 2008. Zammit had been appointed by Prime Minister Fenech Adami in 2003, and Gonzi ‘inherited’ him when Fenech Adami stepped down the following year. After the 2008 general election, Gonzi pointedly did not reappoint Zammit to the cabinet. Zammit simmered on the backbench for the following five years, and then made a personal announcement just weeks before the 2013 general election that he would not be standing for election again.

The following year, he repatriated his secret funds – which are rumoured to run into millions, though he has not disclosed the amount – from HSBC Geneva to Malta, under an amnesty granted by Joseph Muscat’s government.

Lawrence Gonzi told The Malta Independent he had “no inkling” that Zammit was hiding money in Switzerland.

I’d taken that for granted – if he had found out, he would have sacked him immediately, as would Fenech Adami before him – and that’s exactly why Zammit waited until Labour was in government to obtain an amnesty. That way, he figured, the PN would never find out because Labour wouldn’t tell them.