Freeport chairman's company buys stake in Venice port - Bartolo

Mariner, a company belonging to Malta Freeport chairman Marin Hili, has bought a 50 per cent stake in Container Port Terminal of Venice, Labour MP Evarist Bartolo said in parliament yesterday.

He quoted the Italian press as saying Mr Hili's company would strive to attract more container traffic to the port of Venice.

Mr Bartolo said a number of questions could be put and many reflections made about the news.

He would not query whether it was correct for the chairman of Malta Freeport to have a share in a company that operated a port terminal in the Mediterranean, thus competing with Malta Freeport itself.

But he would however make one reflection in view of the fact that the 50 per cent stake bought by Mr Hili's company was reportedly valued at close to Lm4 million. How many self-employed people, professionals and workers in Malta and Gozo would have millions of liri at their disposal to spend on the purchase of shares in a foreign company?

It was clear there were people in Malta owning millions of liri whose mind was at rest thanks to their economic activity elsewhere and so could not be bothered as to the poor performance of Malta or Gozo or whether the Maltese islands "sank".

Mr Bartolo said it was a known fact that it was those who were born, bred, worked and died in Malta who really harboured the true national interest.

Turning to this week's announcement by the government about higher fuel prices, Mr Bartolo said such a decision had in fact been taken months ago by Enemalta but the announcement had been put on hold after the Labour Party's online newspaper, Maltastar.com, had broken the news.

He said movements in fuel prices could have been avoided had the government not ridiculed the Labour government's hedging policy that guarded against fuel prices fluctuations and ensured their stability.

The recent rise in fuel prices would not only affect those buying fuel to run their vehicles but also those who used fuel for economic activity. It was logical that any increase in production costs would be suffered by consumers, who would thus be doubly affected by the latest fuel price hike.

Concluding his address, Mr Bartolo spoke on Public Broadcasting Services, saying he was unaware as to the stage the much-vaunted restructuring exercise there had reached.

It had been said that PBS was over-manned and inefficient. Apparently the over-manning was still there and yet PBS spent thousands of liri on farmed-out programmes, even if a lot of such work could be done by PBS staff.

Mr Bartolo singled out Where's Everybody?, saying the company was paid thousands of liri by the government and it even transpired the company had been given a sponsorship by the Ministry of Education.

Of course, he added, nobody would be willing to bite the hand that did the feeding. On the contrary, there would probably be a lot of hand-kissing.

Mr Bartolo recalled that when, some time ago, Labour leader Alfred Sant had penned an article called "Pronto" he had been severely criticised. The critics included Peppi Azzopardi and Lou Bondì, both of Where's Everybody?, and also Daphne Caruana Galizia, who was being paid Lm30 an hour, as were other people involved in the Nationalist Party's "net". These were the people that received thousands of liri from PBS.

The same people who insisted so much on accountability, transparency and openness would not say what they received from PBS, which, Mr Bartolo said, was becoming a tool of the PN. Anthony Tabone and Andrew Psaila, who both ran PBS, should leave their office in Guardamangia and move to WE's offices in Strait Street, Valletta. PBS could then retain its initials but would become known as Prostitution Broadcasting Services. Indeed, Mr Bartolo added, PBS was becoming a propaganda tool for the government and a means of division within the country.