On Saturday, February 18, Frederick Ofosu, a Ghanaian immigrant, took his own life. He left a message for his friends explaining his despair at how he was being treated by the authorities, like a criminal.

Minister Carmelo Abela may well bang on about Mr Ofosu’s record, implying that with his status and his entanglement with the law Mr Ofosu had brought his fate upon himself. But the fact remains that the climate of fear and uncertainty that contributed to Mr Ofosu’s fatal decision has been fed over the past four years by the government’s ham-fisted treatment of immigrant issues, and its constant slurry of migrant-phobic messages.

This link was sealed by Mr Abela himself, when he announced the U-turn on the government’s recent decision to terminate the temporary humanitarian status for migrants in the same breath as he tried to distance himself from Mr Ofosu’s death.

In its 2014-2024 National Strategic Policy on poverty and social exclusion, the government has committed itself to focus on a number of at-risk groups. These include people with mental health challenges, those experiencing violence or abuse and asylum seekers and immigrants.

Hundreds of migrants are caught in a perfect storm of all three categories. They are seeking asylum or some other form of humane resolution to their situation, are prey to abuse because of their marginalised status and face mental health issues that further compound their plight.

The strategic policy pledges to promote the well-being of migrants and asylum seekers by enhancing their integration. Mr Ofosu’s fate is another horrible testament to the failure of this policy, which up to now has had to struggle against the current of the government’s own populist agenda.

But if Ministers Abela, Dalli and Bartolo can henceforth really bring to bear their personal convictions so that their respective dicasteries fulfil the government’s own inclusion policy, perhaps Frederick Ofosu’s death will not have been in vain.

Mr Ofosu’s fate is another horrible testament to the failure of this policy, which up to now has had to struggle against the current of the government’s own populist agenda

Tilting at virtual windmills

When work had started months ago on the new proposed Press Bill, it may well have been intended to be the ‘progressive’ instrument the Prime Minister claims it to be. But the sorry mess that this government is now in began when Deborah Schembri flew her kite in The Times of Malta two weeks ago.

There can be little doubt that in attacking “one blogger” for outing politicians’ sexual gymnastics her article was laying the ground for the government clampdown on Daphne Caruana Galizia. If Chris Cardona’s precautionary warrants could not stop her, then the full force of the repressive State would.

In fact, when three days later the government launched the bill, the proposed changes were partly justified by the need for ‘responsible journalism’. “We don’t want freedom of speech to end up in the publishing of poison and hatred”, we were sanctimoniously told. Even the Constitution had to bow its head to the paramount need for ‘responsible’ journalism as defined and regulated by the government-state.

No wonder that, so soon after international condemnation of Minister Cardona’s attempt to silence Caruana Galizia, the government’s transparent attempt to do so through the Press Bill immediately raised all the furies.

Within a few days the government was in retreat: we are now told that the proposed registration for political comment blogs such as Caruana Galizia’s may not be a requirement (although the wording of the law remains suitably vague) but is recommended good practice in the interests of ‘transparency’.

Can you believe this government’s gall in lecturing the media on the need for transparency? Talk about the condom calling the umbrella wet.

Toni, PN’s weakest link

In 2014 the present government punched a number of large business-friendly holes in the then Mepa’s rural development policies. Many dived gratefully (not gracefully) in, and recently we got to know that Nationalist MP Toni Bezzina was one of them.

Or rather Toni ‘Hyde’ Bezzina was. He tried to pull a fast one as many others before him: ‘hyde’ behind his wife’s name, stick to the letter of the law, and creatively re-label some ODZ roofless hovels to justify the building of a country pad with swimming pool.

Toni ‘Hyde’ Bezzina has been caught attempting to profiteer from Malta’s vanishing countryside. No legal acrobatics can never make that morally correct. And it is certainly not politically savvy if you want to ride the wave of disgust at this government’s increasingly blatant amorality. But all we got from ‘Hyde’ Bezzina was a curt non-apology apology and a grudging retraction of the planning application, only after pressure from Simon Busuttil.

But that apparently did not bother Toni ‘Jekyll’ Bezzina, who as the Opposition spokesman for the countryside co-authored the PN’s recent environmental policy document. While ‘Jekyll’ Bezzina was signing off on the need to support the farming community to become “guardians of the environment and natural habitat”, ‘Hyde’ Bezzina was busy torpedoing an otherwise strong and far-sighted set of proposals by planning to make hay while the sun shines on his swimming pool.

And to hell with his profiteering undermining his leader’s efforts to retain the moral high ground amid the rising tide of lies and sleaze.

As we say in Maltese: ‘Trid tkun il-vera pastizz.’

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