Read Ivan Martin’s detailed Times of Malta coverage of the findings by the National Auditor on the massive and massively rotten St Vincent de Paul residence expansion contracted directly to James Caterers and the DB Group. The auditor sees no reason to justify the government’s decision to ignore the law on public procurement when in [...]

The author, who is known to me, had written about this subject on this blog some time ago. So far, investigators have been unable – maybe intentionally – to come up with the name of who was the ‘original’ local mysterious real owner of Panamanian registered company Egrant. Why I lay stress on the word [...]

Updated at 10:25 of 28 April 2021 The newly confirmed Commissioner for Voluntary Organisations, Anthony Abela Medici, has a chip on his shoulder the size of a boulder. He’s harboured a grudge for a long, long time. The chevalier, as he insists on calling himself, joined the civil service in 1981 on salary scale 7 [...]

The controversial Commissioner for Voluntary Organisations, Anthony Abela Medici, has just been confirmed in his post by the government for another 3 years. A notice in the Government Gazette today gave the news. Recent decisions by Anthony Abela Medici have raised the ire of several NGOs as new rules restricting voluntary donations to NGOs have [...]

That is how Robert Abela described the Passport Papers. He’s right of course. Long before these leaks, we understood the government was lying about “talent attracted to Malta” by this scheme. Everyone had figured out the passport-buyers pretended to live here but didn’t. Most had heard of the links with Cambridge Analytica and voter manipulation. [...]

Robert Abela said today it’s “worth having the debate” on whether the law on the commissioner for standards in public life should be changed to rule out a former MP. This sounds like a theoretical discussion but it really has a simple purpose: giving people a reason to discredit George Hyzler because he falls short [...]

Michael Falzon announced today the government is dishing out €50 million among 5,000 people as compensation for an “anomaly” from 1979. On average these guys will be picking up a €10,000 cheque. The minister stood in front of a banner headline “insaħħu lill-ħaddiem” (trans: strengthening the worker). It’s a slogan right of the DDR circa [...]

Joseph Muscat’s 2013 ‘roadmap’ was planned way before the day of the election that year. Joseph and his parrots kept repeating ad nauseam that they had a roadmap ready but they never gave details of where it was going to lead. The people learnt about it soon after Labour took power. A bright light-house on [...]

It is not unreasonable to have doubts about an economic activity built on vice, but the gaming industry is today a major economic player, a large employer, and one of the very few economic activities that proved essentially covid-proof. The callousness with which the government is treating the industry is staggering. While vice-minister Alex Muscat [...]

Carmelo Abela is defending himself for full-page adverts taken out in newspapers last year. Half the advert amounted to a picture of himself. The other half was made of vague and empty slogans. The intent was clear: improve his profile and PR. The cost was paid by taxpayers because he’s a government minister. Carmelo Abela’s [...]

From my article in The Sunday Times today: "For this, journalists have been branded traitors and liars. When a committee at the UK House of Commons quoted an investigation published on my website when it analysed the relationship between Henley & Partners and Cambridge Analytica, the Maltese government reacted angrily. It issued a diplomatic note [...]

Dutch MP Pieter Omtzigt who authored the report that led to the Council of Europe’s resolution forcing Malta to open an inquiry into the killing of Daphne Caruana Galizia has filed a complaint today with the body’s ethic committee about the conduct of Rosianne Cutajar. When the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly debated Pieter Omtzigt’s [...]

Read this Times of Malta report about hunters trespassing private property shooting at birds within metres of people working the fields. I was struck by a bit in the report that said the farm hands rushed out to ask help from policemen who happened to be nearby. They asked for their help because a bully [...]

Four new judges were sworn in today. The prime minister and government ministers were not involved in any stage of their selection. Except for Anna Mallia, who seems bothered that she wasn’t sworn in as a judge today as well, no one in the legal profession had any adverse comments about today’s appointees. Anna Mallia [...]

Aaron Farrugia begged his mummy to stop embarrassing him in front of his friends. He sounded like the chic geek whose mother follows him to school to snap at people she believes are being unkind to her precious baby. Aaron Farrugia's mummy had a lot to be flustered about lately what with her son being [...]

A new “Volontarjat Action Group” was launched today to challenge regulations published last year that make it impractical for NGOs and charities to raise funds to conduct their operations. A press conference this morning was led by Richmond Foundation’s CEO Stephania Dimech Sant who said the action group wanted to make it clear to the [...]

Another one of the “corruption” campaigns led by the Labour Party and its media while Joseph Muscat was opposition leader has fizzled out completely as a permit withdrawn in 2009 has been granted without any changes last Friday. The controversy was over an application for an extension to an old farmhouse in the Baħrija countryside [...]

‘Lil din l-art ħelwa, l-Omm li tatna isimha’ the first line of L-Innu Malti ‘Patriot - a person who loves their country and who is ready to defend it against an enemy’ Oxford Advanced Learner’s Online Dictionary I would hesitate to define myself as a patriot. Unfortunately, in recent years the term has become [...]

Watch these comments given to the press by Ian Borg announcing that his adviser’s daughter has resigned from her job in the government agency that he oversees. Ian Borg explains he had no idea about the fact that Adreana Zammit, daughter of his assistant Jesmond, got over €100,000 worth of work commissioned directly from her [...]

I’m trying to follow the testimony of Brian Tonna to Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee. It is painful listening. People with sympathy for him must be in agony hearing him contradict himself, fudging and slipping. I have no sympathy for him. But I have sympathy for his supporters’ embarrassment for his inability to string a sentence [...]