Next time, fly Air Malta
Always the safest option for ministers going to watch football matches
Finance Minister Tonio Fenech is being pilloried for having taken a trip to watch a football match with entrepreneur and casino owner George Fenech, on his private jet (I think it was the private jet that really got to people).
Though the trip took place last March, when the Gaming Bill wasn’t even a glimmer in the finance minister’s eye, Malta Today thought that yesterday would be a good day to announce the news and to give the impression that the trip took place now, right in the middle of the Gaming Bill debate.
The newspaper’s excuse is that it was reporting on a ‘screaming match’ with which some coarse and vulgar MPs baptised the newly restored Villa Francia in Lija last Saturday. Pearls before swine, I’m afraid – the setting really doesn’t fit some of the people. There are some rather nice stables at the rear, which are wholly more appropriate.
Apparently, Franco Debono – with whom electors replaced Louis Galea in the last general election so that we could spend the next five years being subjected to his threats, tantrums and hamallagni – yelled accusations of undue influence at his finance minister because of that trip he took last March.
Call me a poor judge of character, but why do I get the impression that Debono was peeved because he wasn’t the one jetting around in small private planes with Malta’s hot-shots? Compared with a trip on a private jet with George Fenech and Joe Gasan to watch Arsenal play (who’s Arsenal?), being included unexpectedly in the prime minister’s entourage to New York City for a climate change shebang, as Debono was, just paled into insignificance. Bloody hell. That prat gets to play with the big boys and I get Gonzi and climate change.
The finance minister shouldn’t have taken that trip – not because there was anything untoward on his part (he’s straight and clean and not a wheeler-dealer like some others I could mention, not that I need to). He shouldn’t have gone because that kind of thing looks bad, and that’s reason enough not to do it.
He had misgivings about it, which is why he asked for the prime minister’s permission before accepting the invitation. I tend to find that when you have misgivings about something, it’s best to take note of them. Misgivings are not just misgivings: they’re our subconscious mind, beavering away at information we didn’t even know we had collected and collated.
Why give people cause to badmouth you? When you’re in that position, there are enough causes for badmouthing that are unavoidable – making policy, for instance. You don’t need to add to them by taking trips you can do without.
If you’re wondering why Joseph Muscat hasn’t taken up this story and run with it, you can always rely on me to tell you. George Fenech is not just a casino owner (of course) but mainly a property developer and an extensive investor in land and buildings, and the shadow finance minister is his notary.
But you knew that, surely.
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You mean the same shadow finance minister who was recently publicly up in arms against a development in Swieqi but privately fulfilled his duties as notary on the same project?
[Daphne – Indeed.]
The DNA man?
Weak. Damage limitation only works to a certain degree.
[Daphne – Twanny, you’re beginning to bore me. It’s not an exercise in damage limitation but a statement of fact and my opinion about those facts. But while you’re on line, there’s something I need to ask you. Do you think that a finance minister needs to take a trip on a jet for a cosy chat with an entrepreneur? Clearly not – he can always pick up the phone. So do you think he is in debt to that entrepreneur because of this trip? Quite frankly, I don’t think Tonio Fenech’s the type, and he realised he was making a mistake even before he made it. I don’t think he’ll be doing anything similar soon. Now to get to my question: do you think Labour’s finance minister will be in debt to the very same entrepreneur after having worked as his notary on almost every one of his magnificent property deals for several years? I think that’s far more pertinent than any number of flights on private jets, still less one.]
There is a vast difference between rendering a professional service under transparent rules and for legally established remuneration and accepting expensive freebies given for no other reason than fact that you happen to be a minister and have control over the award of lucrative tenders.
That is the point.
[Daphne – Not quite, Twanny. The country is teeming with notaries. George Fenech can pick any one – eenie meenie minie mo – but he picks Charles Mangion and Mangion gets the considerable fees (and they are considerable, on contracts like that). So Mangion depends on George Fenech for income he would rather have than do without, and George Fenech can continue using him or he can choose to stop. George Fenech is the shadow finance minister’s real and actual client. He is not the finance minister’s client.]
…… and this is not the first time that Tonio Fenech has shown extremely bad judgement, to say the least. We all remember how, shortly before the elections, he distributed many thousands of euro from the Good Causes Fund to entities which could only be considered as qualified with a very large stretch of the imagination.
[Daphne – People keep telling me this. Can somebody please give me a reliable list or a link to a newspaper story? Thanks.]
http://www.mlp.org.mt/printer.aspx?cnt=NewsDetails&t=Dossiers&ID=DOS10022008&print=true
Kulhadd was found guilty of libel regarding the above article. This is the relevant court judgement (though the link works intermittently):
http://docs.justice.gov.mt/SENTENZI2000_PDF/MALTA/TAL-MAGISTRATI%20(CIVILI)/2009/2009-06-11_45-2008_55606.PDF
“The finance minister shouldn’t have taken that trip – not because there was anything untoward on his part (he’s straight and clean and not a wheeler-dealer like some others I could mention, not that I need to). He shouldn’t have gone because that kind of thing looks bad, and that’s reason enough not to do it.”
Agreed 100%
Most importantly to me is Fenech’s apparent lack of judgement and political savvy. And then the question is whether he exercises the same lack of judgement in his political job.
Charles Cauchi
Joseph Muscat would never show such lack of judgement by organising several events – including the celebration of his “royal entry into parliament”, to quote Daphne – at the wine vaults of the most criticised and controversial of latterday ‘barunijiet’.
The question is whether Joseph Muscat exercises the same judgement (or lack thereof) in his political job.
What do you mean ‘Who’s Arsenal?’ – please, Daphne, inform yourself about one of the greatest teams around. To get to the current issue, I believe that trip should never have been offered, let alone accepted.
Are some politicians so detached from ‘the people’ that they (politicians, that is) cannot foresee that, although in itself this was just a ripple, it would be blown up to a tsunami? Such news irks the many wannabes so much that it hurts, and their only refuge is the tsi-tsi gossiping at the village market.
Tonio, you surely have more than enough on your mind at the moment than to waste your time and energy in trying to deflect these ‘should-have-been expected’ attacks.
Some people forget the cruises, year in, year out that is-salvatur ta’ Malta, il-perit Mintoff, used to get taken on by Joseph ‘Marsovin’ Cassar on his yacht Noneta.
Talk about exchange of favours: when France put an embargo on the ‘wine’ Marsovin was exporting, Mintoff gave orders to stop all imports from France. Dawk mhux pjaciri, jewilla.
However, I agree with you. Tonio should have known better, and George Fenech should not have put him in such a compromising position.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20091013/local/ministers-trips-revealed-in-blackmail-attempt
[Daphne – Madonna hanina, you think it would be obvious to any mere MP, still more a cabinet minister, that these things should never happen, for all sorts of reasons including the most basic one that it’s just not worth the fall-out and the flak. I’ve come to the conclusion, sadly, that no number of codes of ethics and instructions from aides can teach some politicians the commonsense guidelines to behaviour that have not been drilled into them from childhood: screaming, shouting, washing dirty laundry in public, accepting football tickets and flights from big business, going on television to announce that they’re sulking because they expected to be made minister, accusing the finance minister of being subjected to undue influence when their own shadow finance minister has been working for the same developer for years. They all seem to be asking themselves ‘Why not?’ before doing something, when the question they really should be asking is ‘Why do it?’ Forget correctness (though that too) – it’s just not…..clever.]