The (unreconstructed) men close ranks to protect one of their own

The men at the Central Bank of Malta have closed ranks to protect the deputy governor – who got the post in the first place not because he is fit for it but for partisan reasons – against claims by the mother of his children that he took large bribes from a businessman when he was chairman of Mid-Med Bank (now HSBC Bank Malta).

The subtext of what his fellow directors have said is that women are crazy and that they are not going to listen to what they clearly think of as a ‘scorned woman’ seeking revenge for a “failed relationship”. As the journalist who broke that particular story, I take precisely the opposite view: that nobody is more likely to know that a businessman went to her house and passed on large sums of money to the man she lived with than the woman who lived in that house with that man, and who actually saw him count it out.

You do not invent a story like that, and whatever the woman’s motivation in revealing it, it does not change the facts. The motivation and the facts are completely separate matters, and you do not ignore the facts because of the motivation.

Alfred Mifsud cannot be prosecuted for corruption because the case is time-barred after almost two decades. But it is in the Central Bank’s interest to conduct its own inquiry – as Allied Newspapers/Progress Press has done in the case of Adrian Hillman – while relieving Mifsud of his duties for the duration.

Clearly, the men have closed ranks around one of their own as they see a machete-wielding woman approach, and rest assured that politics are only part of the reason for this.