Our once reputable and trusted country has ended up on the same list of shady countries as Panama.
We all know why it happened, even if some prefer to live in denial. It is the result of eight years of a government that institutionalised corruption right up to the very Office of the Prime Minister. With total impunity.
For those who wanted to see, the signs quickly appeared after the Labour Party was voted into office in March 2013. But when, in February 2016, Daphne Caruana Galizia exposed Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri with secret companies in Panama, it became clear what they were up to.
Instead of rooting out corruption, Joseph Muscat, the then prime minister, took the fatal decision to stand by the crooks in his own office. With his behaviour, he made it amply clear that he was in it with them.
Ever since, even under the new prime minister, Robert Abela, the government has stubbornly refused to bring the trio to justice and we ended up looking like a country that protects criminals in power.
So much so, that the only prosecution so far – against Schembri – was not brought by the authorities on their own initiative. Rather, they were ordered to press charges by the court, as a result of two magisterial inquiries that I requested in 2017.
The question is whether Robert Abela has the backbone to bring his party’s darlings, including his predecessor, to justice- Simon Busuttil
Do the authorities really need to be forced by the court to press charges against Mizzi and Muscat?
While we wait for our authorities to do their job, we are still paying for the corrupt Electrogas contract and Muscat and Mizzi remain untouchable.
A former minister implicated in a second plot to assassinate Daphne faces no consequences. A sitting minister implicated in a bank heist still sits in cabinet. And, to add insult to injury, the former finance minister, on whose watch we got into this disaster, now heads our Central Bank.
Many of us find the shocking events unfolding in our country totally unacceptable. So does the rest of the world and, evidently, so does the FATF.
What do we do now?
It should be obvious. We need to do what we have not done. We must enforce the law and bring the culprits to justice. And as long as the Labour Party is in government it is its duty to do it.
It is useless boasting about new laws and new authorities or about prosecutions against small fry when people at the very top are allowed to get away with murder. Laws are pointless if they are not enforced against people in power. Public authorities are worthless if they are led by party cronies who do not take action against their political masters.
It is also useless to shift the blame onto others, whether on large countries, or on the opposition leader, or on those championing the fight against corruption. This sort of populism does not impress the FATF. On the contrary, it convinces them that the government does not even acknowledge the real problem, let alone inspire confidence that it can sort it out.
The bottom line is that, as long as the government does not do what it should have done in 2016, we cannot send the message that we are taking the fight against financial crime and money laundering seriously. And we cannot start to regain trust and rebuild our reputation.
We did not need to wait for the FATF debacle to understand this. It should have been clear ever since Daphne exposed them. And it could have all been avoided.
The question is whether Abela has the backbone to bring his own party’s darlings, including his own predecessor, to justice.
So far, he has failed and, in the process, he has failed us all. The longer he takes, the deeper we sink.
The FATF decision is a chronicle of a disaster foretold. And the tragedy is that, yet again, we are all being made to pay the price for the damage that the Labour government has wreaked on our country.
Simon Busuttil, secretary-general, EPP Group in the European Parliament