Malta’s foremost business lobby is “greatly concerned” with the country’s latest classification in the annual corruption perception index and has called on the new prime minister to address “allegations” concerning major contracts awarded by the government over the past seven years.
Many major projects spearheaded by the Labour government, including the building of a new power station and transfer of three hospitals to a private administrators have been mired in corruption claims.
The country maintained a record low score in Transparency International’s global corruption indicator, although its ranking improved by one place when compared to other countries.
Speaking to Times of Malta, the Chamber of Commerce’s director general Kevin Borg said the business lobby had proactively take it upon itself to propose a tangible and concrete way forward to instil the values of integrity and ethical business as the core values for the country once again.
The Chamber also called for a temporary suspension of the cash-for-passports scheme to ascertain any necessary investigations and due diligence processes were carried out.
Mr Borg said an evaluation of the way people are appointed to sensitive government posts should also be carried out.
Malta has very lax regulation and little enforcement power to avoid money laundering
Mr Borg said the Chamber was proposing that businesses take a greater leading role against corruption and in favour of transparency and a greater effort is made at national level to strengthen corporate good governance.
The Chamber was also proposing strengthening the whistleblower act to shift towards a cultural change that favours reporting ill-practices.
Deep-rooted concerns
In comments to Times of Malta, Transparency International’s western Europe coordinator Nacho Espinosa said corruption perceptions in Malta were only one facet of a much more complex problem.
Mr Espinosa said current events in Malta showed journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia’s assassination was not only an abominable crime, but also a sign of deep-rooted problems in the country.
He said economic prosperity had not developed in parallel with the required regulatory systems and due scrutiny, with the island’s rule of law suffering as a result.
“Malta has very lax regulation and little enforcement power to avoid money-laundering and the channelling of corrupt money through the country.”
The Transparency International coordinator vowed that the organisation would remain watchful as it awaited reforms to Malta’s “integrity system”.
Transparency International highlighted in its annual report how despite calls from Maltese citizens, Ms Caruana Galizia’s family and the international community to solve the murder case, the government dragged its feet in the judicial procedures.
“Several scandals involving the Panama Papers, the collapse of a Maltese bank and the “golden visa” scheme that sells Maltese citizenship to wealthy overseas investors may also contribute to Malta’s decline on the corruption perception index”, the anti-corruption watchdog said.
Transparency International’s report came a day after the Economist Intelligence Unit’s annual index downgraded the state of Malta’s democracy to the ‘flawed’ category.