The Labour Party could hardly be more smug at the PN’s self-induced implosion. Here – finally – is the ultimate proof that the sanctimonious Opposition is firmly in the pockets of Big Business, with indications that it has been so for a long time. There’s big-time gloating in the Labour camp.

Still, this gloatfest should not distract us from one of the main points of this sordid saga – the fact that big business controls both the Labour and the Nationalist parties. The Labour government can try to persuade us that the ITS deal was a deal like any other and that it was a totally transparent deal on an even playing field. And it can try to tell us that the risible value given to the land was a fair evaluation. Nobody’s buying it.

The fact remains that the terms of payment for such a prime site are very beneficial to db group. There’s an extremely low down payment involved followed by instalments at leisurely intervals, meaning that the db group will rake in the profit on selling the units and won’t have to shell out much up front.

Incidentally, there is no mention of the development of residential units in the tender title. I wonder how the insertion of super-profitable real estate only came about following the award of the tender. So much for transparency.

The deal also involves the displacement of the ITS to Smart City – a move which is going to cost the taxpayer a whopping €75 million when it is perfectly serviceable where currently located. Would this red carpet treatment be given to just anyone who applied for a huge chunk of public land in a prime site? I bet not.

And so, this deal follows in a long line of land grabs where public land is given away for risible conditions and where your average citizen gets shafted.

The PN’s halo has gone the same way as the Azure Window – crumbled beyond repair

The PN’s halo has gone the same way as the Azure Window – crumbled beyond repair. The revelation that the party has been receiving substantial donations from the db group, involved in one of the most controversial land deals ever, has put paid to the PN’s pretensions to monopolise the moral high ground.

The Nationalist Party insists that this is all par for the course and that all political parties in Malta survive on donations. Well, yes, we all knew that. Nobody had any illusions about political party financing.

We know that there is no way that those huge party behemoths are going to be financed by dinner dances or the mark-ups on sandwiches in the cafeteria. We know that it is donations which prop up both the PN and the PL. And we can easily conclude that it is the big donors who are contributing to the bulk of the parties’ finances. Despite the admirable efforts to raise funds from multiple sources (mill-ftit tal-ħafna), the only way to procure enough funds to sustain the resource-sapping part machinery is to plug in to big funds. Everybody knows that.

The point at issue is that the PN had never disclosed the identity of this particular donor. It was the db group itself which revealed the way it had been funnelling tens of thousands of euros to the PN every year purportedly to cover the salaries for the top roles in the PN  hierarchy. Does it make a difference?

Of course it does. The public may have never been alerted to the fact that a particular developer was effectively propping up the PN, had that developer not revealed it in a fit of rage at being singled out for attention for having benefitted so spectacularly in this land deal.

The PN claims that its receiving money from the db group did not stop it from criticising it and that it would return any “dirty money”. I don’t find this particularly convincing. That’s because the PN is accusing the db group of being involved in questionable dealings with the Labour government. It must therefore follow that the PN believes that both the db group and the Labour Party are acting in an unethical and questionable manner.

So why go along with being financed by one of the parties to this undisputedly controversial deal? Why be associated with such people? How can one accept the money from someone who is going to benefit so greatly from this public land grab?

The PN has muddied the waters even further by saying that the moneys received from the db group were paid following commercial services rendered by the PN’s media arm media.link. Again, this is hardly credible. The party has not presented any evidence of these services being carried out, and has been hazy as to what they consist of.

Also, how is the PN going to return “dirty money” if the money was paid for services rendered? Was it a donation after all?

The varying explanations just don’t add up – leaving the general public deeply unsettled – and even more disillusioned with a party which claims to be our corruption lifebuoy.

drcbonello@gmail.com