Shame that we will never know which skyscraper flats are going to be owned by which Panama/BVI companies

Caroline Muscat, the staff journalist who covers environment issues for the Times of Malta and The Sunday Times, reports that the government’s skyscraper policy may breach European law. Read this morning’s story here.

I’ve got another point to make on this subject: that, unfortunately, it’s going to be practically impossible for journalists or the public to find out how many flats in that Gasan skyscraper in Sliema are going to be put in the names of companies registered in Panama, Gibraltar or the British Virgin Islands, whose ultimate beneficial owners are completely concealed from view.

It was only thanks to the most extraordinary set of circumstances that we found out that those companies exist in the first place – and the only ones we know about are those which left a trail in Mossack Fonseca’s data base. There are almost certainly more companies and other people included in the roadmap for theft and corruption.