Correspondence between the government and the Financial Action Task Force will not be made public due to its “highly confidential” nature, the Finance Minister told the Opposition on Tuesday. 

Nationalist Party MP Robert Cutajar asked minister Clyde Caruana to table paperwork related to Malta’s recent greylisting by the international anti-financial crime watchdog, including the final report the FATF compiled about Malta and its anti-money laundering framework and enforcement. 

But that request was rebuffed by Caruana, who told the PN MP that his request could not be satisfied “due to FATF rules as well as our laws”. 

He however directed Cutajar to the FATF Action plan for Malta, published on June 25, which he said is available for public consumption on the FATF website. 

The FATF website provides links to 2007 and 2019 evaluations of Malta by the Council of Europe's Moneyval unit, as well as a paragraph of text describing the country's agreed-upon plan to fix outstanding issues.

The FATF is an extremely secretive organisation, with few of its inner workings made public. When contacted by Times of Malta last month, a spokesperson for the organisation declined to answer all questions about the organisation and would not even confirm that Malta was under review.

Malta was placed under enhanced monitoring by the FATF - colloquially known as its greylist - on June 23 after it failed to satisfy three key implementation criteria in the fight against financial crime.