Anyone who has followed the way that Joseph Muscat’s administration has casually sold off Malta’s passports, the healthcare system, energy independence, and international reputation in a fog of redacted contracts, to anonymous offshore entities and hidden companies has reason enough to be concerned.

It is not only the enormous, multi-million deals with entities like Henley & Partners; Sadeen’s 11-man university; Pilatus Bank still operating as if nothing has happened; and perhaps the dodgiest of all dodgy deals – hiving off our healthcare system to Vitals – that concerns us.

It is equally troubling to see the lack of any law enforcement when it comes to those close to the government, and the constant barrage of social media meta-data mining and non-stop propaganda resulting in the continued beatification of Konrad Mizzi and Keith Schembri by the Labour Party. It’s almost a real-life version of the Twilight Zone.

Sadly, while fact may be stranger than fiction, it is us and our children who will have to pay the price, long after Muscat has escaped from local politics – his short-termism personified.

The deal with Vitals is the worst, most brazen arrangement made with a company with zero experience in healthcare designed only to maximise the massive enrichment of a few people with no qualms about endangering the healthcare system in Malta or patients’ long-term welfare.

Like a bad movie plot, Vitals is now trying to sell itself to an American company whose interest and track record is all about the bottom line. The revelations after revelations exposing this deal mean the Police Commissioner should immediately investigate. But will he do his duty?

Recent history tells us otherwise.

All it takes is a single mention of Keith Schembri’s bankers, Pilatus, for us to relive the moment that an entire gobsmacked nation watched on live television as the people running the bank, at the centre of the most damning accusations in a generation, carried bags out of the premises in the darkness of night. We all knew what the Police Commissioner should have been doing, and we all know what he did instead.

It’s become an unhappy trend.

The Vitals deal is about speculation, moving money and getting-rich-quick that is only possible with political patronage and a brazen knowledge that a tongue-tied Police Commissioner will continue to neglect his duty.

We know that the pennies Joseph Muscat throws to his apologists will not silence their consciences forever

And just as the Vitals deal was never really about healthcare, it is clear that the so-called American University of Malta never really had anything to do with education. We learnt recently that a whopping 26 per cent of enrolled students (four out of a reported 15) quietly disappeared after obtaining Schengen visas supposedly to study in Malta.

It’s a racket and nothing, absolutely nothing, we have seen from this outfit justifies the massive environmental destruction of Żonqor that this government is so adamant in seeing happen.

It is symptomatic of how Muscat views Malta’s remaining green lungs.

We know that, even years from now and with great difficulty, we can maybe get our hospitals back, we can prosecute the corrupt, we can confiscate ill-gotten assets, we can even start to repair our shattered international reputation, but once a green area is built upon it is gone forever.

Ours is not a hopeless cause. That is one of the reasons I am not as sceptical as most that we have extended the vote to 16-year-olds.

Perhaps, it will see the dawn of a new generation of politically active citizens who understand that they have a right to enjoy our environment too, who are not entrenched in the tribalism that marked their parents’ generation, who finally understand that active citizenship goes beyond red and blue and that how you vote should not have to characterise who you are.

In the meantime, those of us who speak out remain the target of the Prime Minister and his men. We can take it, because we do not need hindsight to know with certainty that we are on the right side of history.

We know that the pennies Muscat throws to his apologists will not silence their consciences forever.

We know that the story of Muscat’s years at the helm will be read in incredulity by future generations – in disbelief that so many looked away. Shock that even the assassination of a journalist could not bring so many to their senses.

Ask yourselves why the Glenn Bedingfields of this world are happy to worship at the foot of a statue of Lorry Sant but think that a memorial to Daphne Caruana Galizia should be removed at all costs.

The answer sums up exactly what is wrong with the way our country is being run.

@RobertaMetsola

Roberta Metsola is a Nationalist Party MEP.

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.