More than three decades ago, when the then National Bank of Malta was facing a drop in its deposits, it was the sheer determination of Dom Mintoff that saved the bank when public funding was injected into it.

For this courageous act in the interest of the Maltese society, he incurred the wrath of various reactionary forces who unjustly labelled him a communist and a dictator, even though he was democratically elected.

With the nationalisation of the National Bank of Malta, turning it into the Bank of Valletta, hundreds of jobs were saved, and so were the savings of thousands of Maltese depositors.

BoV continued to prosper to become what it is today - a much larger local bank. The NBM shareholders were the unfortunate party in this saga, and till this day they are still seeking justice. They stake a claim to their investments, even though financial experts had considered their shares to be worthless.

At that time, the onslaught on the NBM deposits was escalating day by day. It was therefore obvious that although the bank still held a certain amount of liquidity, it was calculated that within a few days it would have been in dire straits.

The value of the bank's shares was termed to be practically worthless in such a situation (similar to current global financial situations in which much bigger financial institutions have collapsed). However, some of the NBM shareholders preferred to hold on to their shares even though the bank was fast approaching liquidation, and had it not been for Mr Mintoff's acumen, all could have been lost.

In the current financial turmoil, several much larger institutions have sustained the misfortune of a rundown by depositors, and in cases where there was no government intervention, they have folded and their shares are worthless. Northern Rock and Lehman Brothers Holdings are just two such examples.

Rather than unjustly blaming Mr Mintoff for their misfortune, the ex-shareholders should consolidate their efforts and act on three important steps. Firstly, they should engage investigators to establish how this rundown originated. Secondly, by utilising modern financial software and financial accounting instruments, they should try to prove that the NBM was really capable of withstanding the onslaught of its impeding downfall on its own, without third party assistance or government intervention. If they really can do this, then I hope that they can pass this expertise on to the current, much larger, foreign institutions who are on the brink of bankruptcy.

Thirdly, once they establish that their now defunct bank (NBM) could have survived the calamity of a complete rundown, I suggest that they should seek redress through external powerful courts of jurisdiction such as the Court of Human Rights, or the European Commission.

Seeking justice through our local jurisdiction is just a waste of time and money because, as every Maltese citizen knows, our courts are inefficient and too cumbersome.

Several parallels exist in the current financial turmoil, which replicates and simulates the events which led to the NBM rundown. I am sure that there are quite a number of Maltese who have lost their shareholding in foreign companies such as Lehman Brothers, or sustained substantial devaluation of their shareholding from their investments in companies listed even on our Stock Exchange. This is not the end of the world.

The recent events of global financial disasters have proved Mintoff right once again - government regulation and intervention is essential to maintain security and peace of mind rather than motivation based solely on human greed and selfishness.

Failure of the US government to intervene when the first alarms of financial disaster were raised by the faltering Lehman Brothers culminated in a domino effect necessitating an injection of billions of dollars to prevent financial collapse. Nobody dared to call George Bush a communist due to this intervention. I wonder whether there will be another Mr Mintoff to take us through the present global recession, or whether we are in for more taxes and water and electricity rates' hikes, in spite of much cheaper oil.