The most serious and worrying indictment yet of this government’s lack of seriousness in fighting financial crime has come from the final report published by Moneyval, the permanent committee of the Council of Europe that monitors how effective are members countries’ actions against money laundering and the financing of terrorism.

Google ‘Moneyval’, and the landing page of the top-most result shows a gardjola with this chilling summary: “Malta should step up its efforts to investigate and prosecute money laundering as well as to strengthen its supervisory system.”

We figure alongside such stalwarts of effective financial regulation as Moldova and Ukraine. God, the shame!

MFSA’s official reaction? “Oh, almost all the recommendations have already been implemented.” So that’s all right then. But before we all start dancing Il-Maltija, let me make three small observations.

Firstly, all such reports are sent to the headline country months before official publication so the necessary regulations can be quickly updated and government can save some small part of its face by saying: “Oh, almost all the recommendations have already been implemented.”

So long as MFSA CEO Joseph Cuschieri remains under a cloud of suspicion…the MFSA will suffer

Secondly, the real question is: why were these tighter regulations not already in place? Most of Moneyval’s recommendations are not exactly rocket science.

Who is to blame for the state we are in? Who welcomed Satabank and Pilatus Bank, to mention but two, without proper due diligence, when key elements of their financing and business model should have immediately raised eyebrows? Was it a matter of incompetence, or did anyone nudge the MFSA at the time to close an eye and stamp the papers?

Thirdly, the key point being made by Moneyval is not whether MFSA has its regu­lations nicely rewritten and spell-checked. It’s whether it has the resources and real institutional will to implement them effectively without fear or favour.

The MFSA recently boasted that it would soon be financially independent from government. Well, whoopsy-doo! The MFSA is deficient in its independence of action not because it still needs government funds to cover its recurrent expenditure. So long as there are shadows on the probity of its top personnel, on how they were chosen, how they ‘retired’, and their personal coziness with the government, no amount of black on its books will clean the tarnish that currently smudges MFSA’s name.

Let’s start from the top. So long as MFSA CEO Joseph Cuschieri remains under a cloud of suspicion due to his handling, or mangling, of the Gozo ferry tender that has now been annulled, the MFSA will suffer. Yet, there is no sign yet that Cuschieri is willing to let go of this particular teat, even if just to step temporarily aside until his name is cleared.

And with the shining example of (lack of) institutional accountability by the Prime Minister and half his cabinet, who can blame him?

Kudos to the Kamra

The Kamra tal-Periti did not participate in the ‘Iż-Żejjed Kollu Żejjed’ environmental protest. In her recent article ‘It must be said. We architects are complicit’, Kamra president Simone Vella Lenicker ex­plained why they took this decision. It was not because her committee did not agree with the reason for the protest.

They did not participate because their presence would have come across as hypocritical. After all, every planning application that contorts planning regulation interpretation and nibbles on yet another bit of ODZ is formulated and signed by an architect.

For every conniving contractor and devious speculator there is an architect who is ready and willing to enable his employer to bend the rules, ignore good taste and uglify the environment, both built and natural.

Vella Lenicker said what we already knew. But she broke taboo by saying it, by prioritising the moral imperative for the common good rather than the protection of the profession at all costs. By doing so, both her professional integrity and the credibility of the Kamra tal-Periti have been boosted.

The Kamra, has taken responsibility for its share of the sorry state we are in, and pledged to do something about it. This will not convert wayward members overnight.

But its stand has set a new standard for the recognition of collective responsibility by a professional body that is as rare as it is noteworthy. Let’s see if other professional bodies will follow suit.

Contrast her principled stand with that of Malta Developers’ Associationpresident Sandro Chetcuti. In his recent meeting with the Prime Minister, Chetcuti made his own imperative crystal clear: “Ħalluna ħa naħdmu!”, get out of our way and let us work. In other words: don’t you dare block the sun with your stupid environmental and work practices regulations that would stop us making hay.

In defence of Harry Potter

A school has introduced one of the Harry Potter books as a reader, and some priest has resurrected the old whopper that reading the Harry Potter series will open the doors of young minds to Satan and all his hellish minions.

Poppycock and balderdash! Codswallop of the highest degree! After my evening cigar, when I am not imbibing Nietzsche or gently swirling Wordsworth like a fine port, I like to slum it right along with the Weasleys. Give me a good spell in pseudo-Latin and I’m off into the sunset on a hypogriff or a thestral.

Seriously now, if a child starts dabbling in the occult after reading Harry Potter, it’s because said child has some serious problems that predate the reading.

Other Maltese schools in the past have introduced the series, and they did not have to grapple with an outbreak of Ouija boards. None of the hundreds of family members, friends, theirchildren and students who I know have suddenly got an urge to draw a pentagram simply because they read about Harry and his mates.

Because that is what the real magic of this story is about: ordinary people, orphans, working poor, middle-class misfits and outcasts.

They grapple with growing up, prejudice, bullying, envy, snobbery, choosing good from evil in the face of fear and death. They discover the power of friendship, family (whatever form it takes), loyalty, altruism and courage.

Harry Potter and his mates are not sex-obsessed tech junkies, and yet they are admired as role-models by teenagers worldwide. I wonder why?

If there is one thing that worries me about having Harry Potter as a school reader it’s that, in many of our schools, there is nothing that is guaranteed to kill its magic more than passing it through the ‘literary’ mangle of setting a test or “identifying the plot and the characters”.

Better a quick Avada Kedavra than the horror of seeing a good story book wilting and dying on the school desk.