Opposition leader Simon Busuttil said today that the €260,000 early retirement deal reached by Bank of Valletta with Parliamentary Secretary Michael Falzon when he left to join the Cabinet was ‘obscene’ and shareholders needed to be given a decent explanation.
Speaking in a Radio 101 phone interview, Dr Busuttil said it was clear that Dr Falzon did not want to resign over the Gaffarena expropriation scandal because he would have to return that money when he returned to the bank.
The Opposition leader said the government seemed to be on a race to the bottom, with scandals being unearthed every day.
But, he feared, these were only the tip of the iceberg, the little which the opposition got to know about.
Dr Busuttil said that were he prime minister he would immediately order a ‘proper independent inquiry’ into the links between the Gaffarena family and the family of former acting police commissioner Ray Zammit.
The current situation was alarming, he said, because it struck at the heart of the people’s confidence in the police force.
Furthermore, had he been prime minister, he would also have immediately stopped Ray Zammit and his sons from any public posts. So far, he said, Ray Zammit was still Director of Prisons and head of the new agency on the warden service.
Alas, Dr Busuttil said, this government was only acting with alacrity to suspended Nationalist workers for allegedly being ‘spies.’
Dr Busuttil said the current police commissioner had promised to instil new confidence in the police force and he should now explain what he would do to clean up the Force.
Dr Busuttil said that had he been prime minister he would have immediately demanded Michael Falzon’s resignation because he was too close to Joe Gaffarena and had discussed the controversial Old Mint Street expropriation with him.
While scandals were popping up every day, Dr Busuttil said, this government was closing in on itself and trying to keep everything under wraps. That would explain why it had not published the deal with Shanghai Electric, among others.
The people, he said, were getting increasingly disgusted with these scandals.
The PN, therefore, had a duty to seek ways to restore the people’s confidence in politics and politicians and a new PN government would introduce measurers, including an effective ministerial code of ethics and a Commissioner of Standards who would, among other things, scrutinise ministers’ declarations of assets.
The people, Dr Busuttil said, were paying the price of corruption. Gaffarena had been made a millionaire overnight, ministers and backbenchers had several sources of income, while the people only got a cost of living wage increase of 58c.
The people were also seeing how meritocracy had gone overboard, with an 18-year-old having been appointed director of a government-owned security company.
FALZON'S DEAL WITH BOV 'UNIQUE'
Meanwhile, the Sunday Times of Malta reported today that a ‘special’ clause inserted in an early retirement package given to Parliamentary Secretary Michael Falzon by Bank of Valletta – which allows him to return to his job if he leaves government – is unique.
Bank of Valletta confirmed that this is the first time any employee has been given an option to return, though it added that none of its staff had ever been appointed to Cabinet. Dr Falzon also received a €260,000 pay-off.
The Malta Union of Bank Employees criticised the special provision, saying it defeated the object of early retirement, while it also objected to a post at BOV being left vacant.
Senior BOV officials told the newspaper that the concession given to Dr Falzon was already being challenged by some employees who were given early retirement packages in recent years.
In the past five years, BOV granted early retirement packages to 117 employees but none were given the option to return.