Listed in the Panama leaks of 2016. Exposed by further leaks for setting up a structure to receive bribes. Exposed by the auditor general for direct interference in public procurement. Exposed in connection with the sale of Enemalta stock to Shanghai Electric. Exposed for the Montenegro deal. Exposed for the VGH deal. Exposed trading official [...]
Times of Malta reports that the government spent €1.7 million on a fleet of buses delivered by a company owned by Yorgen Fenech and his family 18 months ago and it doesn’t know what to do with them. They spent more than €200,000 on a direct order from the same supplier to put in charging [...]
Konrad Mizzi is not afraid of the Public Accounts Committee. Fear has nothing to do with it. If he felt fear he’d go there and embarrass himself by repeatedly answering “I choose not to answer” or have his lawyer say it for him repeatedly. He’s been through that once. He knows that way too many [...]
From my article in The Sunday Times today: "The prime minister is head of a dying government but also leader of the party that wants to compete to run the new one. That’s an inbuilt unfair advantage which should rightly belong to no party leader. "Even the UK, from whom we inherited this delightful quirk, [...]
Joseph Muscat is on a long list of witnesses in the criminal trial of Matteo Salvini, leader of the right-wing Lega party in Italy and former home minister, who is charged with kidnapping after blocking for several days a Spanish NGO ship loaded with 147 migrants from entering Lampudesa. Although Joseph Muscat is merely named [...]
Archbishop Charles Scicluna described a “crisis of the feeling of common good” Friday when he spoke at the opening of an exhibition on “People Power” organised by the Dutch embassy in the gardens in the ditch outside the walls of Valletta. The Archbishop complained that in spite of the passing of the colonial experience, Maltese [...]
Sent in by someone known to me. Following the recent outcry on the inappropriate use of the word ‘riċerka’ by a Labour politician, a journalist has managed to obtain a copy of a secret document that is kept hidden at the Labour HQ. Titled ‘Labourspeak – the language of a modern day society’, it gives [...]
There was something chilling about how Ian Borg put it when he argued for the need of a metro: ‘If we do nothing our children will curse us’. I don’t think I can ever remember using a quote from Ian Borg as something I felt any sympathy for. Take it out of the specific context [...]
Our governors do not merely delight in the assurance that their grip on power is being extended for another 5-year term. They somehow feel the need to troll their opponents, a real-word reflection of the “erbgħin elf” followed by a row of lemons that their minions post on Facebook as an irrelevant close to every [...]
The headline Times of Malta takes from Robert Abela’s speech of yesterday is a less ironic version of what I wrote when I strung together the themes of the budget and the opposition’s reaction to it. L-aqwa żmien – the best of times – were just a prelude. The good stuff is still ahead. Robert [...]
After twice skipping invitations to the public accounts committee to answer questions about energy contracts he negotiated, concluded, and signed, Konrad Mizzi yesterday said he would accept the third invitation. The reason he gave for this conversion is that he did not want to let the nationalists – bastards – “distract” people from Robert Abela’s [...]
Of the dozens of time-wasting shots in the dark human rights cases brought by the men charged with killing Daphne Caruana Galizia, one paid off today. George Degiorgio stands accused of being one of Daphne’s killers. He denies any wrongdoing. The prosecution’s case says that he was the man who sailed his brother’s boat outside [...]
A general election is near, whether it is formally announced in the coming hours or not. First of all, it’s time. 6 months short of the 5 year deadline is too late to call whatever happens now an “early” election. Secondly, the government party has been campaigning with the same frenzied appetite they displayed in [...]
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I’ve learned a few things over the last several days that perhaps I should have known. But I didn’t, so there’s a fair chance you don’t as well. Do not trust your eyes when your phone tells you so and so from your address book is calling you. It is perfectly possible for someone to [...]
Does it make a difference that we find out that when Adrian Delia as Leader of Opposition ignored the fact Yorgen Fenech owned 17 Black (when the big news was that Yorgen Fenech owned 17 Black) Yorgen Fenech thanked him for his spot of blindness? Not really. It doesn’t make it any better that Yorgen [...]
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