Falzon apologises for failing to declare overseas earnings

Former Nationalist minister Michael Falzon has issued an apology for his failure in retaining his earnings abroad without declaring them in the register of assets for MPs between 1987 and 1996.

Falzon, a MaltaToday columnist, admitted having held some €465,000 in architectural earnings in a Swiss account he set up during the 1970s for a job in the country, and retaining those earnings there without declaring them in the MPs’ register of assets.

“I acknowledge that although my fiscal position has long ago been regularised, this is not sufficient for a politically active person,” Falzon, until last week a member of the PN’s executive committee and of the government’s oil procurement committee, said.

He repatriated the funds some time before 2008 under a government amnesty.

Falzon said that before 1987 he was involved with other professionals in the provision of architectural and civil engineering consultancy services outside Malta and that, considering the political situation prevailing at that time, had opted to retain his earnings abroad. 

“I recognise that I ought to have repatriated the funds on the first possible occasion after the 1987 election and that I ought to have included the said funds in my ministerial declaration of assets. As a result of these omissions, I have failed my Prime Minister, my parliamentary colleagues and the electorate who had given me their trust by voting for me.

“In view of this, I unconditionally apologise for my failures,” Falzon said.

Falzon, 70, contested the 1976 elections as a PN candidate and was elected by casual election on the 10th district. Falzon was appointed minister for development of infrastructure in 1987 and ministry for the environment in 1992. He is credited with the creation of Malta’s planning authority, later MEPA. In 1994 he was appointed minister of education and human resources.

Falzon was editor of The Democrat and The People.