No disrespect meant to monkeys, after all we all know about evolution and all that, but quite honestly do Mario Camilleri and the Prime Minister think we are brain dead or something?
As a young boy I recall reading the Famous Five and Adventurous Four series and I distinctly remember questioning the plots in my mind, because they appeared to me to be full of holes, but even those held up better than the merry-go-round tales we are being fed on the Café Premier affair.
For starters, the Prime Minister should know that one untruth leads to another until it snowballs on you. Our common alma mater used to drill it in to us from an early age, but perhaps the Prime Minister may be forgiven for having been distracted in those years by the notable genius in his midst.
I won’t refer to the whole list of nearly infantile untruths revealed in this whole affair, as even I get put off by long lists, but I’ll just highlight three.
The ‘logical’ explanation we --have been sold as to why we, the collective Santa Claus of this fair land, gifted Cities Entertainment Ltd with €4.2 million, is that it is not right that there should be a commercial enterprise under the Biblioteca and it could be dangerous.
Oh really! So it was fine for my late grandmother to enjoy a cuppa and a pastry, freshly baked on site, every Saturday evening at Café Premier in the pre-war years, prior to strolling down Kingsway to the Royal Opera, but now, when safety regulations are 20 times more stringent and when all sorts of safety precautions are employed, it is not.
It was fine for Café Premier to exist and operate as a cafeteria for all those decades, but now, our ISO36000 Prime Minister had a bad dream and decreed that it is no longer safe! Yes… right! Give me a banana, will you!
Anyone who has been to most major cities in Europe will tell you that virtually all major landmark buildings in the city centre have commercialised a large chunk of their respective ground floors with all sorts of commercial establishments. The Royal Opera House at Covent Garden in London comes to mind.
Here, where it is fine to take up chunks of our few sandy beaches with concrete platforms, where it is OK to constantly eat up more and more of our countryside, where it is OK to build all round our historical architectural gems, where our idea of safety at work is a few helmets and bright red or blue signs, it is suddenly not fine to retain a cafeteria under the Biblioteca, where it has been in operation for close to a century.
Not to mention Trattoria Palazz, also located under the Biblioteca, and other possible establishments that I cannot think of right now.
Our ISO36000 Prime Minister had a bad dream and decreed that Café Premier is no longer safe
Awfully credible, right?
This is not to mention the claim that the use of gas cylinders could be a source of danger under the Biblioteca, only for that untruth to be inadvertently unmasked by the very same little boy who opened his yuletide sack so soon after the last general elections. Banana shake please!
We have also been told that lessons have been learnt and that it was wrong to have excluded the relevant departments within the civil service in the negotiations that led to the Café Premier deal.
By the same yardstick that we are being made to appear like monkeys, we are also being told, rather ‘candidly’, that someone acted like a monkey and did not know or realise that the relevant departments within the civil service should have been involved in relation to a deal of this size.
So we are meant to clap in admiration for this act of selfless humility, for a man who admits his mistake is a man indeed, we have been told!
Yes, right, and I suppose we are also meant to forget the 20 million times that the previous administration was admonished by the same man for having given direct orders and the like.
We are also meant to forget that the same man spent four years in Brussels, where the level of correctness and red tape on these issues has been perfected to the extreme.
Yes, we have to forget all that, and believe that the Prime Minister ‘innocently’ forgot and did not realise that he should have involved the relevant departments within the civil service in the negotiations that led to the Café Premier deal. Slice of banana cake please...
To add insult to injury we have also been told by a ‘candid’ and ‘offended’ Camilleri that it is not true he ever spoke to the Prime Minister about the Café Premier affair before the general election. We are told that he only spoke to him about his shareholding in Maltco, the operators of our lotteries.
I see, how awfully nice of him! Hang on, why exactly did he speak to the then leader of the Opposition about his shareholding in Maltco, which let us not forget holds court in the lotteries world in Malta by way of a tender of sorts awarded by the government of Malta?
But that may perhaps be the next present to unwrap in his yuletide sack. After all if he got away with the Café Premier deal I guess he must fancy his chances, wouldn’t you think?
Of course, it is sheer coincidence that Café Premier stopped operating the day after the general election.
It is also a sheer coincidence that a commercial offer for the premises was turned down in favour of the Premier’s offer. Banana yogurt, please!
Then the masterpiece, also ‘purely coincidental’, no doubt! We now know that our little yuletide boy donated the very grand amount of €1,000 to the Nationalist Party via the former prime minister in the presence of the former general secretary of the party, as our little yuletide boy made it a point to underline.
Yes, right!
Reverse psychology comes to mind. Nicolò Machiavelli comes to mind.
Orchestrated manipulation comes to mind. Hedging comes to mind.
We are all meant to clap and award our little yuletide boy brownie points for being so generous in allowing the Nationalist Party to buy a meal for six people at one of Malta’s best restaurants, because of course it shows beyond reasonable doubt that he was not in cohoots with the current Prime Minister. Yes, sure, as strong an alibi as there ever was! Banana cereal bar please!
But you know what, we are monkeys, all of us, if we think it is all fine and dandy for our government to insult our intelligence in this manner.
We are all monkeys if we think it is OK for a private business to be bailed out by taxpayer money in such an underhanded and irregular manner, when we then don’t have enough money to light, round the clock, the eternal flame honouring those who lost their lives for us.
We are all monkeys if we think it is OK for our money to be used for one commercial enterprise holding government property, while all those GRTU and Chamber of Commerce members, who also operate in government property and have fallen on hard times, receive one court warrant and threatening final notice bill after the other, with no help in sight.
We are all monkeys if we are fine with our Prime Minister bypassing protocol and good governance procedures and using a private e-mail account to conduct affairs of the State.
We are all monkeys if we are fine with our Prime Minister being cavalier, unfazed and ever so brazen about the serious flaws, transgressions and untruths that have been revealed in the Auditor General report.
We are all monkeys if we keep swallowing the mantra that dictates that because the naughty Nats did this and that, than it is fine for Joseph and his Technicolor dream team to do as they please!
But then, nothing surprises me these days. All it takes is a few nice sweeteners, the English language, a few teas and villa parties, and of course a couple of boat parties that so many crave, and all is forgotten. Who cares after all, it’s government money, so it doesn’t concern us.
So here I go to buy a few bananas as well as a cage!
David Griscti is president of the AŻAD Foundation.