Is it just me that cannot understand the way things work in this country?
Hear me out.
On 3 November, 5 days ago, Il Sole 24 Ore reports in Italy that the Catania tax police believe that a Malta Foreign Ministry official aided and abetted the illegal smuggling of diesel from Libya to Europe by falsifying certificates of origin.
This is a serious, grave offense that should lend a convicted perpetrator several years in prison. A person who would have committed such a crime would want to do everything they can to cover their tracks and remove the evidence that could convict him or her.
Overwhelmed by the reporting on Malta in the Italian press I only came across this report on Il Sole 24 Ore on 6 November, 2 days ago. I post on it and next day, yesterday, it’s splashed all over the news.
This morning, 5 days after news first broke, the Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Office calmly calls up some personnel files and “starts an internal inquiry”.
An internal inquiry you say? So a crime is suspected, by the Italian law enforcement agencies no less, to have been committed internally. And it is investigated internally?
The suspects, named, not by a biċċa blogger, but by law enforcement agencies in Italy, conduct an inquiry into crimes they themselves are suspected to have committed?
Where the bloody hell are the police? Did the Guardia di Finanza inform the Malta Police of their suspicions before they shared them with the press? And if they didn’t, why were the police not sealing files, computers and offices of the Malta Foreign Office to preserve evidence in what is unambiguously a suspected crime scene? And I mean 5 days ago, not tomorrow!
It’s not just that we have corruption and crime in our highest political offices. It’s that corruption and crime are allowed to go on with impunity.
The next report on Il Sole 24 Ore will have to be that 5 days after the Guardia di Finanza told them someone in the Maltese Foreign Office falsified certificates of origin to allow the illegal smuggling of diesel, the Malta Police had not yet done anything about it. And they say the government’s critics are giving a bad name to the country in the international press.
After that happens we can expect a scene like the morning after the night before when the owner of Pilatus Bank ran off with the evidence and the police chief made sure he had his last rabbit thigh and a good night’s sleep before sending the police to make a big hullabaloo of slamming gates after the horses had been allowed to fly to Baku.
There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate.