Cassola calls on PM to request data on Maltese citizens’ Dubai accounts from Germans

The independent candidate Arnold Cassola has called on the Prime Minister Robert Abela to request access to a list of European citizens who have opened accounts and secret companies in the United Arab Emirates.

Earlier in June, Germany’s finance minister had ordered the purchase of data on Germans with assets in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates (UAE), as part of efforts to combat tax evasion, following similar purchases by regional authorities of data from Switzerland in the past decade.

The German government said that the aim for such a purchase is to identify tax offences such as undeclared income, assets that have been hidden from the authorities and illegal cross-border transactions.

According to Cassola, the German government is offering national governments access to the data trove, and Maltese authorities should step in to acquire the data.

“We are certain that Maltese citizens such as Yorgen Fenech and Paul Apap Bologna have opened secret companies in the UAE,” he said. “Personally, I cannot argue that even cousins Ryan and Keith Schembri could have done the same.”

Cassola told the PM that assurance in acquiring the data not only comes against the recent greylisting of the country, but also because a “substantial number of Maltese citizens are not yet sure whether” Abela is his own man, or ordered around by his predecessor.

“That you immediately identify and prosecute those who have swindled the Maltese state and citizens with their taxes dues, will be concrete proof of your genuineness and of the fact that you are "your own man" and not a puppet in the hands of that political delinquent that is Joseph Muscat,” he told the PM.

Germany’s Federal Central Tax Office (BZSt) paid around €2 million for the data, according to Der Spiegel magazine.

"With this new data, we are illuminating the dark corners in which tax offenders have been hiding until now," German Finance Minister Olaf Scholz said.