In the second of a two-part feature Anthony Manduca lists some of the comments and controversial statements made during interviews with The Sunday Times of Malta in 2017. Read part one.
"Why would anyone want to stop this progress?"
- Finance Minister Edward Scicluna defending his government’s economic record shortly before the country’s general election, May 21.
"Joseph Muscat looked the other way when I requested moral support by providing tangible evidence of corruption."
- Former CEO of the Foundation for Tomorrow’s Schools Philip Rizzo describing the Prime Minister’s reaction when informed about corrupt practices at the government’s school construction agency, May 28.
"Called upon to choose between upholding morality in government and prizing their personal well-being, most people choose the latter."
- Former editor of The Sunday Times of Malta Laurence Grech reflecting on the electoral result, June 11.
"I did my job so well that they wanted to get rid of me. They wanted to silence me. They do not want me to speak out."
- Former FIAU official Jonathan Ferris, who was sacked by the anti-money laundering agency soon after he began investigating alleged corruption in government circles, July 16.
"If our society’s leaders were equipped with PhDs …Wow, what a quantum leap in outcomes there would be!"
- University of Malta Rector Alfred Vella on how the country benefits from doctoral studies, August 6.
"I am all for change where it is necessary and when it is done wisely. I am not for change just because it is fashionable to criticise the past."
- PN leadership candidate Alex Perici Calascione, August 13.
"I go as someone who is in love with God and wants to share that love with others."
- Fr Robert Galea, a Maltese priest in Australia, explaining how he has made it his mission to talk to young people who have never heard the gospel, September 3.
"The right way, not the easy way. I do not take shortcuts."
- PN leadership candidate Chris Said stressing the importance of the PN sticking to its values and remaining distinct from Labour, September 10.
"I’ll be selling off what I’ve worked for all my life and I will concentrate on giving back to my country what my country gave to me."
- Newly-elected PN leader Adrian Delia, September 24.
"The next time round I should trust less. I should vet the whole process."
- Outgoing PN assistant secretary general Jean-Pierre Debono reflecting on the proxy documents allegations in the PN leadership election, October 1.
"Whoever wants to get you will get you in one way or another, whether you have police protection or not."
- Former police commissioner John Rizzo on whether slain journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia should always have had police protection, October 22.
"The appalling murder of investigative journalist Daphne Caruana Galizia is tragic, and reveals a once proud and uncommonly kind nation that has allowed its integrity and high standard to be auctioned to the corruption of the highest bid"
Former US Ambassador Douglas Kmiec, October 22.
"The fact that you have won an election doesn’t mean you can ride roughshod over existing laws, or that you can appoint all your people to top positions without taking meritocracy into account."
Dean of the Faculty of Laws Kevin Aquilina explaining the importance of the rule of law, October 29.
"We have reached out to the PN a number of times but we are not getting a reply."
- Newly-elected leader of the Democratic Party, Anthony Buttigieg, describing how the PN-PD coalition was on the verge of collapse, November 5.
"The basic essential elements of good governance that include accountability, transparency and the uniform and universal enforcement of laws are being swiftly and dangerously eroded."
- Chief Justice Emeritus Joseph Said Pullicino on the decline of the rule of law in Malta, November 5.
"The rule of law must reacquire its genuine and pristine meaning: that the only measure of right or wrong in democratic governance is whether an act or an omission is according to law or not."
- Giovanni Bonello, former Judge of the European Court of Human Rights, November 5
"Honestly, I was not fully conscious of their situation from the other side of the world."
- Nationalist MP Ryan Callus, who witnessed first-hand the horrors Rohingya Muslim refugees were subjected to by the Myanmar military, when he visited Bangladesh as part of a Commonwealth parliamentary delegation, November 19.