Early spring for the rich

L-Istrina and CHOGM 2005 auctioned 59 BMWs used by the Commonwealth heads of state during the recent Malta jamboree. Fifty of these cars are fitted with high specifications.

All the cars were sold without registration tax, which is substantial.

The new owners got practically a brand new car, saving big money. All guaranteed proceeds from the auction will go to the Malta Community Chest Fund.

These luxury cars have gone to the wealthy and the ostentatious. In all circumstances, they are well beyond the reach of the average taxpaying, working citizen.

The powers that be have made it easy for the powerful and the wealthy to take advantage of this opportunity. Exemption from the registration tax means that the Exchequer foregoes close on Lm1 million, which could have been usefully channelled in many directions, including the needy beneficiaries of L-Istrina.

As it is, the only beneficiaries were the fat bidders, who have also been feather-bedded by the additional offer of special bank loans. They were offered discounts on interest rates, for the first two years, on loans specially taken up for the purchase of the BMWs. Such loans are repayable over six years and can amount to as much as 90 per cent of the total costs involved in the purchase of one of the vehicles, including VAT and other ancillary costs.

Verily, the promise of an "early spring" has been realised for the well-to-do, with the government making extraordinary concessions to the rich rather than the poor.

Who was responsible for these decisions?

Is it not a spectacular travesty of justice that, while all this has been going on, public-spirited volunteers take their bicycles to the Continent to collect money with which to buy kidney machines for patients in St Luke's Hospital and others climb Mount Kilimanjaro, while the government foregoes Lm1 million it could have realised from the rich on this occasion?

These topsy-turvy arrangements leave a particularly unpleasant aroma, especially at this time of the year, when the concentrated efforts of L-Istrina are supposed to focus on the needy and the underprivileged.

Speaking for myself, I prefer to make direct donations to my chosen beneficiaries, rather than to organisations that navigate by their whims.