This morning, the government lies to us again, using a certificate from a criminal organisation, signed by a man implicated in Caribbean bank fraud

Instinct told me (and probably others, too) that they had hatched some kind of plot about Egrant Inc, the third company set up in Panama in concert with Konrad Mizzi’s and Keith Schembri’s, when the Prime Minister began denying openly and voluntarily, a few days ago, that he owns it – even in parliament.

This past year, he has been under heavy fire about Egrant Inc and he has dealt with it by leaving through the back exit when reporters are around, ignoring the questions and accusations, fending off interviews that he cannot control, and refusing to take part in a televised debate with the Opposition leader.

Now that he thinks he has sorted the matter of who owns Egrant Inc, by getting Brian Tonna to lie to Malta Today and say that it’s a shelf company which Nexia BT bought and has kept lying there awaiting the eventuality that some client might need it, you can rest assured that he is going to accept that invitation for a television debate and will now be less inclined to avoid the press.

Instead of running away from reporters, he will be running towards them to say, “See? It’s not mine. Brian Tonna said so.” And we will all believe him like we all believed Chris Cardona.

Last night, as I let my mind wander on the subject of why Muscat might have suddenly taken to voluntarily denying ownership of Egrant Inc after a year of avoiding the subject (that’s how things suddenly click), it came to me that either Brian Tonna or Karl Cini is planning to take the fall for him. And I wrote a post about it.

It wouldn’t be heroics, I wrote, because lying for the Prime Minister like this would only serve to give them more leverage over him which they could then use to their advantage in creaming off countless contracts and other benefits. They are already selling Maltese residence visas all over the Middle East, with an exclusive contract from the Maltese government. And there is more besides.

But I had ascribed far too much honour among thieves, because they found a way out that necessitates neither of them taking the fall for Muscat: they are claiming that Nexia BT bought Egrant Inc as a shelf company and that it is still sitting there on the shelf in their office – so to speak – awaiting a client who might need it, FOUR YEARS LATER.

The story was fed to Malta Today, a situation that has become systemic and which the newspaper really needs to do something about, because it shouldn’t permit the government to undermine it in this fashion with fake news. The editor should tell the government/Labour Party/cronies to report their own fake news on the Labour Party’s media channels, rather than using the stale, hackneyed, transparently obvious system of giving a story to the only independent newspaper left which it still trusts, and then having its party radio and TV stations pick it up immediately as a ‘story in the independent media’. Getting a good story is one thing. Knowing you are being used by corrupt people to their own ends is another.

As ‘proof’ that Egrant Inc is just a shelf company, Brian Tonna gave Malta Today a certificate signed by an official at Mossack Fonseca in Panama. The owners of Mossack Fonseca – Juergen Mossack and Ramon Fonseca – are currently in prison, held on remand pending corruption charges after a massive investigation which has led Panama’s Attorney General to call Mossack Fonseca “a criminal organisation”.

The certificate (reproduced below from Malta Today’s article) is signed by Ricardo Samaniego, who has been implicated in preparing fake minutes for an investigation into a bank’s operations.

The Trinidad Express reports in its coverage of that Caribbean case: “The made-up board minutes which formed part of the package of documents submitted to BOSLIL were signed by MF employees Ricardo E. Samaniego and Yadira De Boutaud, moonlighting as chairman and company secretary, respectively, of Emrith’s offshore corporation.”

Samaniego is also a nominee director of Hearnville Inc, the Panama company owned by Konrad Mizzi.

It is crucial to remember here that when Karl Cini contacted Mossack Fonseca just days after the general election, he asked for three companies to be incorporated in Panama in concert with each other, giving details for Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri via email and saying that the third company would also be “for an individual” but that the details would be given over Skype.

There is another point that needs to be made: if this certificate were not another lie and forgery – just like the bank documents which Nexia BT forged on a letterhead for a Maltese bank branch that no longer existed, when restructuring companies in the British Virgin Islands for Adrian Hillman and Keith Schembri – Tonna and Muscat would have whipped it out of their hat a year ago, and not now when they are cornered by the PANA Committee.

We have come to a pretty pass here in Malta when our Prime Minister uses a certificate from a criminal organisation, signed by a man implicated in forging documents for a bank investigation in the Caribbean, and transmitted to the media by a corrupt accountant, to attempt to salvage what is left of his reputation.

Left to right: Brian Tonna, Joseph Muscat and Karl Cini at the opening of Nexia BT’s new offices four years ago, when Muscat had just become prime minister.