Anyone who watched the Malta Eurovision finals last week knows that our Prime Minister is definitely right about one thing: we do need to attract talent to this country.
How well a Chinese troupe singing in regimented chorus or a choir in burqas waving Maltese passports would fare at the Eurovision is a mute point. But the Prime Minister does have a point about talent.
It was impossible to sit through the whole event, with those intermittent adverts and singers telling us that Valletta is the capital of Europe, very much like they were chanting Malta Tagħna Lkoll.
While missing out on local Eurovision finals may be forgivable, a document that came out from the Prime Minister’s office last week, a consultation paper on party financing tells us something we all apparently overlooked and this one is clearly unforgivable.
In 2012, the Office of the Prime Minister tells us, Nationalist (or was he?) MP Franco Debono presented a Private Member’s Bill on party financing that “constituted a historical development”. There were many “years of inaction”, said the OPM, but the brave and honourable Debono presented a “concrete” Bill, as against the more liquid passport sales Act, we should suppose.
Apart from feeding the egos of people who helped bring the previous government down, the consultation document on party financing is poor in content indeed. Yes, there are taps on anonymous donations, taps on larger donations – but much of this is useless hype because these proposals are as outdated as Debono’s University thesis.
Political parties have companies these days, radio and television stations and anyone wanting to give money to a party can just place adverts in its media, all in the name of business, of course, which, in a way, it is.
The real problem with party financing concerns their assets, their big assets.
The Prime Minister said he was launching the consultation on the Bill after giving the PN enough time to get out of its financial rut. His altruism and sportsmanship know no bounds.
He overlooks the fact that the PN does not have the pleasure of the services of the chairman of the Malta Developers Association, Sandro Chetcuti, who holds meetings at the Labour HQ and has told The Malta Independent on Sunday that what he does in his “free time” should not be discussed on national television.
He said: “I think the people out there wanted to hear about the way forward for the new party financing legislation and not who I met.”
Really? Doesn’t he realise that people like him and the lobby he represents is a main reason why people want regulation on party finances? The building industry is the country’s biggest concern and the recent government decisions on building outside development zones, raising building heights and allowing land reclamation are all, in people’s minds, the result of a government pampering the building industry.
Chetcuti says everything he does at the Labour HQ is in his personal capacity, voluntarily and out of a strong belief that Labour is “working in the right direction”.
For whom Labour is “working” he does not say but it is unlikely his visits to the Labour HQ are ideologically based because he reserves the right to “change his political opinion” in future. So it can’t have anything to do with the government’s leftist social housing policies. Or wait!
In truth, Chetcuti is in the party he belongs because he thinks just like it. When, last year, he received a suspended sentence for assaulting and slightly injuring Vince Farrugia, the former GRTU director general, the infrastructure ministry said he could keep his seat as a member on the government’s Building Regulations Board because the court case did not impact his work on the board. This is that same degenerate and amoral kind of thinking that elected Labour into office and the members of the Malta Developers Association clearly think the same way, to their shame.
Chetcuti epitomises the new breed of the Maltese voter that brought Labour to power so successfully at the last election. There are many words to describe people like him.
The Prime Minister overlooked other facts as well when he decided the time was up for the PN to put its finances in order, mainly the Australia Hall.
This is an abuse of public funds of the highest degree but that’s Labour for you
Put aside the shameless, abrasive and scandalous way in which the €10 million worth of property has been handed over to Labour by its sister in government, the most worrying aspect of all is this: China may be interested in that property.
Who is negotiating with the Chinese, the government, the party, both? The Chinese don’t make a difference back home between party and government so we cannot expect them to think any differently here.
If the deal goes through, unless it’s been done so already, Labour would just have to pack its suitcase from among the rubble it leaves behind in Pembroke and move to another hall – a ruby hall worth millions.
China may probably offer to restore the Australia Hall, saving Labour the costs and add that to the string of jewels they gratuitously give countries they want to woe – usually in Africa.
If the deal falls through, the relaxation of building heights in the area by Mepa has added even more value to the property and made it more palatable to Labour’s buddies, the friends of Chetcuti.
In both scenarios, maybe even the two entwined, we are not looking at a level-playing field come the next election.
A deal of this magnitude with China, facilitated by a Labour government, will boost Labour’s financial clout tremendously and strengthen its propaganda machine, currently in low gear since the Labour government is doing the job for it.
The billboards, tents and an intensive advertising campaign used to promote the last Budget like it was an electoral programme are signs of things to come. This is an abuse of public funds of the highest degree but that’s Labour for you.
The odds at the next election will be terribly in Labour’s favour, given the immensely successful, high-budget Labour campaign last March and the impressionable Maltese electorate. There is no reason to believe it will not succeed again.
Party deputy leader Toni Abela said he does not want a cap of election campaign spending. He has a point because what would happen if we later found out that a party has overspent and won? The end for Labour always justifies the means and our electoral system ensures that the winner takes all.
True control of political party financing, if that can ever exist, would need to take into account real estate assets like Labour’s hall in Pembroke and the numerous properties confiscated by previous Labour governments and handed over to the party to turn into clubs.
It can be argued this has nothing to do with corruption and party donations. But, in truth, it really depends on the price paid for these properties when sold.
Labour will obviously argue that the Pembroke deal is a commercial transaction and nothing more. Yes, but China is not a private company, is an undemocratic State to boot, and with increasing vested interests here, including, very soon, millionaire communist capitalists with Maltese passports.
China too will argue that the Pembroke deal is just a commercial transaction. It knows all about commercial transactions given the way this communist State applies capitalist principles the world over as it deploys soft diplomacy to obtain the natural resources it sorely needs.
It was fascinating to hear the director general of the Land Department tell the Public Accounts Committee that he discovered that the Labour Party had to keep the Australia Hall in a good state of repair after his attention was drawn to it by an NGO in 2009 – that’s a full 30 years after a Labour government handed the property over to Labour.
The Nationalist Party has only itself to blame here. Pussyfooting around a political adversary that knows no bounds, no shame and no political principle was a great letdown to the electorate that put their trust in it for nearly a quarter century. They have allowed Labour to get away with this.
The price to be paid will be high, in every sense, and Debono’s party financing Bill will not solve this. It is irrelevant.