Updated | Speaker says Panama committee never requested sitting with MPs

Speaker Anglu Farrugia dismisses green party's claims that he ignored a request by the European Parliament's Pana committee to hold a sitting with MPs 

Speaker Anglu Farrugia has flat-our rejected claims by Alternattiva Demokratika that he had turned down a request by the European Parliament’s Panama Papers committee to hold a session with all Maltese MPs.

Farrugia told MaltaToday that he never received a letter requesting such a sitting, and that the only recent correspondence he had with European Parliament concerned Malta’s ongoing presidency of the EU Council.

Contacted by this newspaper, AD leader Arnold Cassola said that he had gleaned the information from the Pana committee’s preliminary draft programme for its upcoming visit to Malta on 20 February.

The draft programme states that the committee will at 3:15pm either hold a meeting with Maltese MPs or with a list of politically-exposed people – including de facto energy minister Konrad Mizzi and the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri, who were both implicated in the Panama Papers scandal last year.

Yet, this was only a draft programme and indeed included PN MP and former Tonio Fenech, whose name has since been dropped from the final list.

The Pana committee will send a delegation to Malta on 20 February to meet with representatives from business, academics, media and NGOs, the Tax Compliance Unit, the Financial Intelligence Analysis Unit, and MPs.

The only politicians who have so far confirmed that they will meet the committee are finance minister Edward Scicluna and PN deputy leader Beppe Fenech Adami. Neither de facto energy minister Konrad Mizzi nor the Prime Minister’s chief of staff Keith Schembri, who were found to own offshore companies, have responded to the PANA committee’s invitation. Brian Tonna and Karl Cini of Nexia BT, the Maltese audit firm who set up the offshore companies with Panamanian law firm Mossack Fonseca, have not responded either.

“It is shameful that all the Maltese politicians invited, apart from Minister Scicluna and Beppe Fenech Adami, are avoiding the meeting, thus reinforcing the impression that they have something to hide. Then they have the nerve to speak about transparency and openness,” Cassola said. “As for Konrad Mizzi, Keith Schembri and Brian Tonna, the more you run away, the more you convince all Maltese that you were involved in dirty business. The more you run away, the more you will be haunted by the Panama Papers for the rest of your days."

Former Nationalist minister Ninu Zammit, who was found to have held $3.2 million in a secret Swiss account during his time as minister under the Swissleaks investigation by the ICIJ, was also invited to testify but has yet to respond.

Green MEP Sven Giegold said that the failure of Maltese members of Parliament to participate in serious inquiries suggests that there is s/omething to hide.

“All member states have the duty to cooperate sincerely with inquiries of the European parliament,” he said, adding that it should be considered an honour not a pain to be invited by the European Parliament. “I expect all persons invited to accept out invitation. If countries don’t play ball with the inquiry, we need to consider other methods of encouraging cooperation,” said Giegold