Forgotten National Bank shareholders

The US Federal Reserve, the European Central Bank, Asian central banks and other central banks worldwide have recently had to inject billions of dollars to ward off a global credit crisis. This was done as a matter of urgency, pumping cash back into the banking system in order to keep financial markets running.

In December 1973 this is what the Central Bank of Malta should have done in the case of the National Bank of Malta Group (a banking group that had been the mainstay of industry in Malta at the time, to the extent that it produced most of the venture capital to finance local businesses). Instead, the notorious Dom Mintoff intervened and created the opportunity to seize the bank lock, stock and barrel without offering any compensation to its shareholders.

By injecting a mere pittance into the newly formed Bank of Valletta (or should I call it Bank of Vendetta), the bank flourished and has been raking in profits annually from as early as its first year (1974). It has boosted its profits by the million annually without a single hiccup.

After over 20 years in power, the bigoted and supposedly God-fearing Nationalist government is still profiting handsomely from the generous dividends paid out by the bank, and is still unashamedly ignoring the rights of the National Bank of Malta shareholders, who were bullied and threatened into signing away their shares by the regime of the day. Who, may I ask, would be stupid enough to sign away their shares and the inheritance of their children for nil value? Certainly not just to please the "amiable" Mr Mintoff! The shareholders had no choice but to give in to the immense pressure put on them in order to protect their homes and families. This threat was not a figment of our imagination, as was proved a short time later with the burning of the offices of The Times and the ransacking of the law courts and the Archbishop's Curia without a single arrest being made. Today's President, Eddie Fenech Adami, well remembers the day when Labour thugs forced their way into his house, ransacked it and tried to harm his family; once again no arrests were made.

Such things happened in those dark days of terror. At the time, the battle cry of the Nationalist Party in opposition was "justice for all", but on being elected to power in 1987, the Nationalist Party in government (and its subsequent administrations) conveniently forgot about justice as far as the National Bank of Malta's shareholders are concerned.