Malta’s Anti Money Laundering (AML) leak is feared to be thanks to the Maltese Opposition accused of meddling in the Council of Europe’s AML assessment of Malta.
We look into the recent developments in Malta and highlight Finance Minister’s response.
Is Malta complying with AML benchmarks?
Recently, The Sunday Times of Malta has issued a report that Malta had failed to comply with international benchmarks for AML. It is understood that out of 11 sections of compliance that are assessed none were marked with a “high” score. It is understood that https://www.coe.int/en/web/moneyval/moneyval-brief within the Council of Europe draft report was quite damning of Malta’s implementation of adequate anti-money laundering policies.
The Finance Minister Edward Scicluna voiced his concerns over this leaked draft report and reiterated that it was unfair that this confidential information was in the public light, especially since Malta is only half way through its review.
Rightly so, this ‘leak’ mid-way does jeopardize Malta greatly and put them at an unfair disadvantage to other countries that undergo assessments of this form.
This has deeper roots into Maltese politics as both the opposition and local government officials have been involved in the Moneyval assessment. It is understood that the MEP David Casa met with Moneyval officials to draw light on various allegations against Malta, as well as other similar actions.
What impact has this AML leak had on Malta’s reputation?
Prof. Scicluna also reiterated that the Maltese economy was in a good state of health and not reliant on the FDI attracted through the Malta Citizenship by Investment Program.
He informed that GDP had grown 8.9% in 2018 and the private sector was employing over 3/4s of the total labour force.
Scicluna, however, said that it was unfair that, due to Malta’s AML leak of the draft report the evaluation process had to be stopped in the middle, while, in other countries, it is allowed to take its due course, causing Malta reputational damage which is harmful to FDI.
Moreover, in terms of Malta’s actual performance vis-a-vis other EU member states in the implementation of country-specific recommendations on AML, they highlighted that Malta is in fact one of the best performing EU states. Malta in fact ranks 4th on implementation.
Scicluna informed that “since our country is growing at such a rapid speed, it is to be expected that things will be pointed out which can be improved.”
