The body language spoke volumes. It said it all. Beppe Fenech Adami’s facial contortions in Parliament, in reply to a simple question from the Justice Minister, outdid even Norman Wisdom’s in The Square Peg, when road mender Norman Pitkin was doing military training.
All Fenech Adami was asked to say was what the Nationalist Party intended to do about Jason Azzopardi, after the Auditor General flagged scandalous shortcomings, which can be viewed to amount to criminal neglect, in the transfer of land to PN donor and benefactor Żaren Vassallo and in the government purchase of HSBC properties.
The Auditor General felt political responsibility should be carried for the irregularities he found. This time it is not the Labour Party saying so but the holder of a constitutional office. The expressions the Auditor General used in his report – “use of pressure, no ministerial authorisation, authorisations concluded in one day, merits of the case ignored, political direction was manifested, minister bears an element of responsibility for gross misrepresentation” – cannot be glossed over. They are far too serious for that.
It is no wonder that Fenech Adami completely ignored Owen Bonnici’s question and instead of answering went into a virulent tirade about what he called the most corrupt government – referring to Labour today and conveniently forgetting about the PN yesterday.
What makes it worse for Jason Azzopardi is that, of all Nationalist MPs, he is the most vociferous about good governance
But for all his hysterical rant, Fenech Adami’s body language showed that he knew he was defending the indefensible – that no one was going to believe him, that he did not have a leg to stand on.
Central to all the Auditor General’s findings was former minister Jason Azzopardi, now seeing his ministerial convolutions having politically highly damaging consequences for the PN, which aims to contest the election on corruption but which is being shown to have a lurid record in this area. What makes it worse for Azzopardi is that of all Nationalist MPs, he is the most vociferous about good governance. Are standards, for him, set high for Labour but can go as low as the gutter for the PN? Can hypocrisy be greater?
So, HSBC not only bought out Mid-Med Bank for a pittance – Fenech Adami’s father [former prime minister Eddie Fenech Adami] valued the HSBC name at millions, which were subtracted from the price paid by HSBC for the Maltese bank – but the PN government subsequently went on to buy properties from HSBC with a lack of transparency, with the Office of the Prime Minister playing a pivotal role that was unwarranted and with political direction in play in the identification of properties.
There were gross shortcomings, and officials were negligent. So says the Auditor General’s report. And all these charges fall in the lap of Azzopardi, the good governance champion, who as minister was responsible for all this and who let the gross shortcomings, and negligence, go unchecked and unquestioned.
In just the Vassallo matter, where Azzopardi was responsible for the sale, for just €700,000, of land worth €8,000,000, he outdid all the Gaffarena dealings since 2013, and the Café Premier transaction, and I don’t know what else. Besides, of course, his other mega deal at Fekruna in St Paul’s Bay.
Vassallo got for €700,000 a total of 20,000 square metres of land – land big enough to accommodate three football pitches – and we learned after the 2013 election that the bankrupt PN itself was indebted to him, because Vassallo was among those who had bankrolled the PN. Who knows, maybe he is also one of the ċedoli donors. We don’t know the donors’ names as the ‘good governance’ PN refuses to publish them.
An “inconsiderable sum” is how the Auditor General described the price paid by Vassallo for the land he bought. It is a mild stricture. ‘A pittance’ would have been more appropriate.
Ian Castaldi Paris is a notary public and commissioner for oaths.