The publication of the Egrant inquiry report may not have produced news as sensational as that coming on almost a daily basis from the various testimonies and evidence in the court cases related to the assassination of Daphne Caruana Galizia. However, the inquiry has brought to the surface several issues that remain unresolved.
The magistrate leading the inquiry faced two significant constraints in the process that led to the lengthy final report. The first was that of the limited time available for a thorough forensic investigation into the broad network of criminal and corrupt practices that seem to be endemic in the political backdrop surrounding this tragic case.
The prime minister failed to take immediate remedial action when it became evident that one of his ministers and his chief of staff had opened secret accounts in Panama. This failure gave those who were part of the perverse network of corruption the chance to hide their tracks by deleting emails, destroying USB drives and shredding incriminating documents.
The Egrant report confirms that Nexia BT probably had a USB drive containing details of the three secret accounts opened in Panama for Keith Schembri and Konrad Mizzi and a third party who so far has not been identified.
The report goes further and recommends that the police should investigate Nexia BT official Karl Cini for perjury. The Egrant inquiry did not find evidence that the prime minister’s wife owned the Egrant company. But neither has it answered the question as to who owned this company.
A second major constraint on the inquiring magistrate was the lack of sufficient resources to delve deeply into the mountain of data relating to the various aspects of the corrupt network that existed in and near the centre of gravity of government. A magisterial inquiry can hardly be expected to conduct the forensic investigations that are necessary to establish what form the alleged money laundering practices of Pilatus Bank took.
The Egrant report found some loose ends that seem to be part of the extensive dirty fabric that saw local and Azerbaijani politically exposed persons benefitting from Maltese taxpayer money. Understandably, the inquiring magistrate could only make a recommendation for further investigations by the police on alleged money laundering by Pilatus Bank and other actors in this tragic saga.
The whistle-blower involved in this story, Maria Efimova, confirmed the damning declarations she made to the inquiring magistrate who recommended that she be investigated for calumny and perjury. Surely there is scope to revisit her claims and establish whether what she said represents what truly happened behind closed doors in Pilatus Bank.
The China-Malta offshore partnership registered in less than respectable jurisdictions raises worrying questions on the standards of governance that the country’s top politicians laid down for the executive arm of government. The Chinese partners would do well to explain why this structure for promoting investment was chosen, as the Maltese government seems reluctant to do so.
The prime minister claims that the Egrant report vindicated his assertion that the Panama company did not belong to his family. His wife may have found the claim that she owned Egrant “hilarious”. But the Maltese people want to know how their government has betrayed their trust and squandered their money in the last few years.