The corrupt banker at Bank of Valletta

After years of constant mismanagement and capital destruction, Bank of Valletta was turned into a liquidity provider for Joseph Muscat’s fraudulent and corrupt public projects namely for Electrogas and the Vitals and Steward deals. Bank of Valletta loaned €36 million to Steward and backed the government’s guarantee to Electrogas. In order to conduct this kind of irregular banking activity in support of corrupt contracts and deals, you need to have your own man in the bank who approves all your dirt and closes an eye on all your real intentions and activities. Labour’s guy in BOV who approved the bank’s liquidity provisions to Joseph Muscat’s public corrupt contracts is none other than the Chief Risk Officer, Miguel Borg.

In order to approve liquidity provisions for the mentioned projects, Miguel Borg would have had to do extensive due diligence and research on the contracts, and if the bank had done its due diligence correctly, it would have flagged the contracts as fraudulent and corrupt from the very beginning. Miguel didn’t do that and instead approved the bank’s liquidity provisions whilst giving the bank’s stamp of approval for these corrupt contracts.

Under Robert Abela’s regime of impunity, Miguel Borg won’t be interrogated by the police, nor will he face scrutiny at a Public Accounts Committee. Instead, Miguel has been rewarded a government directorship at MIMCOL for his loyal services. He will stay on at Bank of Valletta as both an executive director and its chief risk officer as if nothing has ever happened.

Miguel’s ascension to his current role at BOV is also very typical of how Labour apparatchiks are shot through the ranks at Malta’s biggest bank (the Maltese government has a 25% stake in the bank and appoints its directors). Miguel has no high-level banking experience prior to his current role and his only previous experience was at Mapfre Malta (also owned by BOV).  Yet, despite his lack of any relevant experience, he was made an executive director and chief risk officer of BOV by Labour.