It wouldn’t have happened in IM Beck’s day but ever since I started signing this thing, standards seem to have slipped, at least insofar as concerns the denizens lofty towers of the Office of the Prime Minister.
A functionary therein was moved to bang off an epistle to this august newspaper titled ‘Clarification on oil scandal comments’ and fairness (and the law) requires that it be given equal prominence as the piece to which it refers.
The weighty message reads:
“The Office of the Prime Minister refers to the article ‘An oil-fired controversy’ by Andrew Borg Cardona (December 21).
“It is indeed unfortunate that Borg Cardona chose to resort to deceit and inaccuracies when dealing with the institutionalised bribery in oil procurement under previous administrations.
“When dealing with this most shocking scandal in Malta’s political history, Borg Cardona mentions a certain Anthony Debono who allegedly shared wealth with oil trader George Farrugia and refers to him as being now a consultant of the Prime Minister.
“This is nothing but a blatant lie. The truth is that Debono has neither worked, nor is working in any way, for the present Prime Minister.”
And there endeth the lesson, as the Vicar would put it.
It is good to see that the niceties of the fogey-ridden past, where “rights of reply” as they are called in common parlance, avoided calling people liars and alleging deceitfulness because editors were entitled not to publish them, have been done away with. Or perhaps it’s only because it’s me being called a liar that such sensibilities have gone out of the window.
It would have been nice, of course, had the gentleman who was so incensed by my piece done his job with a bit more alacrity.
Had he bothered to read my column, he would have noted a telling word in the bit where I refer to “...a certain Anthony Debono, a political survivor if ever there was one, so much so that he is now apparently a consultant to the Prime Minister, having enjoyed very good relations with virtually every minister since Vincent Moran”.
The word, just so that even the meanest of intelligences can get my point, is “apparently”, that is to say, that this was the perception that had been given.
Had the Office of the Prime Minister been on the ball when other areas of the media and blogosphere made mention of Debono and his political or professional connections to the PM, they would not have needed to call me a liar, because they would have already clarified the point.
And while on the subject of lies and deceit, doesn’t the OPM clerk who sent in the letter to my esteemed editor not think that characterising the (alleged) bribery and corruption as having been institutionalised under previous administrations is somewhat disingenuous (he can ask his Prime Minister if under the rules of British humour, that word means more than it seems to)?
What an ambition to turn our capital into a cheap and tawdry meat market
For bribery and corruption to be “institutionalised” the relevant politicians have to be involved and that, from where I’m sitting, hasn’t been proved by the longest of long shots.
But perhaps the Prime Minister’s Office knows something about administrations prior to the Nationalist one: was there institutionalised bribery and corruption in Alfred Sant’s time? Or in Karmenu Mifsud Bonnici’s time? Or in Dom Mintoff’s time?
They used the plural after all, and there’s only been one Nationalist Administration, albeit a long one.
Don’t you just love the way the government’s apologists hardly ever address the core points of an issue but focus instead on the reactions to it?
The latest luminary in this regard was the General Workers’ Union’s president, a gent by the name of Carachi. According to this gentleman, we should now all put our shoulders to the wheel and try to head off the international criticism of the citizenship prostitution programme rolled out by Joseph Muscat. We should not, according to Carachi, wash our dirty linen in public but, rather, present a united front to the world and deflect the tidal wave of contempt that is washing over us.
Sorry to disappoint you, my good man, but a scheme that is bad, fundamentally and radically bad, does not become good simply because the rest of the world thinks it’s bad and your neo-colonial mentality pushes you to wrap yourself in the flag and thumb your nose at the rest of the world.
Oh, and while on the subject of the GWU, precisely why does this cheap bit of retail therapy “benefit the worker”?
According to the Minister of Finance, it’s going to net us a pretty insignificant amount, so no tax rebates there and there’s no need for the people forking over their few thousand euro to live here, work here, set up shop here or otherwise ever do anything more than hand over the euro, so what is your common or garden worker going to get out of all this, pray tell?
Oh, it’s a Labour thing, therefore it’s good for the workers, that’s the logic, is it?.
Let’s be clear, shall we? A few weeks ago, it would cost something in the order of €650,000 to snag a shiny red Maltese passport. Under the new regimen, it seems, it’s going to cost a bit more, but hey, all we’re talking about is the price, the principle is the same.
Scrap it, once and for all, why don’t you and spare us the red faces that will be the result of Joseph Cuschieri and Marlene Mizzi defending it in the European Parliament. The PM was right, but not in a good way, when he said that in 2014 the eyes of the world will be on us.
You have to wonder what drives people to open their mouths and let sounds come out, sometimes.
The chairman of the V-18 Foundation has let it be known that it is intended to turn Strait Street into the new Paceville, but “tastefully”. Jason Micallef, folks, thinks he can use the words “Paceville” and “tastefully” in the same sentence and not have the rest of us rolling on the floor, cackling with helpless laughter.
But then, this is the guy who thought nothing of telling the world, when asked what he was reading at the moment, that his idea of literature is Man. U’s ex-boss’s biography. He also seems to think that theatre and the arts are somehow involved in village hall representations of the Passion, but then, who are we, mere mortals, to question the intellectual and meritocratic credentials of the Prime Minister’s appointees?
But what an ambition for our capital, the city destined to be 2018’s Capital of Culture, to turn it into a cheap and tawdry meat market, bustling with inebriated youths staggering from club to club, throwing up in the streets and generally behaving with decorum and gentility.
No doubt they will be ferried into town by fleets of efficient, timely and luxurious buses, now that Labour has appeased its Little Weasels and persuaded Arriva to depart these shores, licking their wounds.
The country needs an efficient public transport system, to be sure, but given that the depths which the old system had plumbed had been reached under assorted Labour administrations, I suppose people of my vintage will be forgiven for not holding my breath that Joe Mizzi will be any better than his predecessors.
So, we’re going to turn Valletta into Paceville, if Jason Micallef has his way. Considering that his boss has got our citizenship turning tricks for a few thousand euro, I suppose it’s par for the course, really.
imbocca@gmail.com
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/author/20