[WATCH] PN’s anti-mafia laws ‘needed to get off greylist’, minister prefers enforcement

Anti-mafia laws proposed by the Opposition will give the state the strongest tools to combat organised crime, Claudio Grech said questioning government’s reluctance to embrace them.

“The Bill put forward by the Nationalist Party… gives new and stronger tools to the State to combat organised crime and I cannot see how you can be against them in principle and still want to exit the greylist,” Grech said on Monday on TVM Newsplus’ Xtra.

The Nationalist MP was reacting to the Prime Minister’s comments on Sunday when he brandished the Opposition’s omnibus Bill as an attempt to declare Malta a mafia state.

One of the PN proposals is to create the new crime of association in mafia-like organisations. Another proposal is to introduce unexplained wealth orders and making it illegal for public officials to use personal email and communication tools for work-related purposes.

Grech said greylisting by the Financial Action Task Force has caused problems and the PN proposals are intended to help government get Malta off the list.

But Finance Minister Clyde Caruana insisted that putting all the proposed laws in one basket was not the solution to exiting the greylist.

Caruana said the Council of Europe’s Moneyval review had found that Malta had the right laws in place. “What we are speaking of now at FATF level is implementation and enforcement of those laws to get off the greylist… today the FIAU has the power to investigate money flows so the tools are there.”

It is an open secret that the FATF wants to see prosecutions of money laundering and other financial crimes, including those that may be linked to people close to power.

Air Malta restructuring

On Air Malta, Caruana expressed his wish that after the next election the airline would again be in his portfolio to be able to finalise the restructuring process.

“If I am elected and if I am made minister, I wish to continue having Air Malta in my portfolio because I wish to see the restructuring process that we started come to fruition,” Caruana said.

He insisted the national airline must become commercially viable and any routes that do not make financial sense should be axed.

“Air Malta’s major problem was that it lost loads of money on routes that were not financially viable. The first and only aim Air Malta should have is to be viable… if we want to expand tourism, we have to explore how this is done,” Caruana said.

Grech called on government to discuss with the private sector and the Opposition because making the airline commercially viable was a long-term project.

“Government should explore an airline that is co-owned between the private sector, government and workers, who should be given the opportunity to invest. It is only in this way that we can ensure the airline’s decisions remain commercial and not political. Today, we have minister Caruana, who is using business-speak because his are not the words of a politician. But he is part of a government that has been here since 2013. This is why we need to have an airline that is co-owned to ensure this commercial sense remains throughout,” Grech said.