There goes single-minded Saviour again
Saviour Balzan can't see the wood for the trees. And if anyone can tell me what these trees are, I'd be grateful.
Funny what single-minded obsession can do to a man. It can either make him a high achiever as he single-mindedly pursues his goals and targets.
Or it can turn him into Saviour Balzan.
Balzan is so mired in lanzit and hdura towards the man who got the job instead of his ziemel John Dalli, so wracked with spite towards the finance minister, that he can’t spot a good story when he’s sitting on top of it.
He can’t see the wood for the trees.
The news that BAWAG Bank has foreclosed on Jeffrey and Peter Montebello to the tune of EUR42 million becomes, in the eyes of Saviour Balzan and that too-bad-I-missed-the-Bader Meinhof-and-Brigate Rosse-era editor of his, Matthew Vella, a story about Tonio Fenech.
Talk about missing the point.
Malta Today breezes past the permutations and implications of a EUR42 million foreclosure on a property development company, both for the lender and for the borrower, and instead of investigating what this means in terms of fall-out, uses it as a stick to beat the finance minister.
My God, these are the people who sent decorators to work on Tonio Fenech’s house and then didn’t pay them!
EUR42 million, you say? Yes, yes, yes, but let’s put that aside for a minute. These are the people who sent decorators to work on Tonio Fenech’s house and then didn’t pay them!
Obviously, there must be some fishy business here, as otherwise they wouldn’t have sent decorators to Tonio Fenech’s house and then not pay them just a year – a year to the day! – before the bank foreclosed on a loan of EUR42 million. Did you hear what I said? These are the people who sent decorators to work on Tonio Fenech’s house and then didn’t pay them!
And it doesn’t even occur to the man once famously described as having a third-rate brain that the reason Jeffrey and Peter Montebello didn’t pay the decorators they sent to Tonio Fenech’s home BECAUSE THEY DIDN’T HAVE THE CASH AND TRIED TO WRIGGLE OUT OF IT BY TELLING THE CONTRACTORS THAT FENECH EXPECTED IT DONE FOR FREE.
If Balzan doesn’t think this is possible, then perhaps he should hear some of the calumnies said about him, and he’s not even finance minister. He had a mansion in Monte Carlo, the last time I heard, to which I replied: “No, he doesn’t. He’s selling advertising in Malta Today, not heroin.”
So you see, Saviour, I do stick up for you sometimes.
And take my advice, as somebody with a little more balanced perspective on the Montebello story than you have: it’s not about Tonio Fenech. It’s about what a foreclosure on EUR42 million could mean for the Montebello brothers, and what it would mean for parts of the economy if they are forced to file for bankruptcy, to say nothing of what it might mean to the bank.
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Eastern redbud.
[Daphne – Oh good, then it should grow here. Cercis canadensis, cousin of Cercis siliquastrum, the European redbud or Judas tree. And the white one?]
Daphne, please be careful about importing non native trees just because they look ‘pretty’.
[Daphne – The islands are full of non-native trees. There are hardly any native ones.]
Yes sure like the eucalyptus that we were made to grow as children because it was Mintoff’s tin pot idea. They did and are still doing a lot of damage. The drive now is to try and use native plants. Look at the Museum of Natural History in Mdina. The oleanders were removed (in the face of protests) and in their place there are now olive trees which add much more dignity to the palace.
[Daphne – 1. Eucalyptus trees are deleterious because they have roots close to the surface which take water before anything else does. That’s why they shouldn’t be planted in agricultual areas or public spaces. In their own gardens, people are free to plant them because they are free to create water problems for themselves. 2. The replacement of oleanders with olives is purely a matter of taste. There is no biological or environmental imperative for doing it. 3. If we were to use only native plants, Malta would look barren and hideous – and deeply boring. 4. Imported varieties are only unwise when they pose a risk to the ecosystem. When they don’t pose a risk, they’re fine. The more, the merrier. 5. Using your argument, there should be no botanical gardens anywhere, because by definition they are storehouses of non-native varieties. And there should be nothing in the gardens of San Anton Palace but olives, Mediterranean pines and sandarac gum trees.]
I agree with most of what you said. What I really meant about importing non natives is that I disagree with importing NEW species of which we have no experience.
The ones which we already have, love them or hate them, causing damage or not, are difficult to get rid of. Try getting rid of the cape sorrel primrose (I know you will say that it makes the countryside look pretty and I agree but we don’t know what it replaced) or the castor oil plant that is choking so many valleys.
[Daphne – The Eastern redbud is type of Judas tree, which we have here in Malta already. And it won’t grow outside gardens because it needs lots of water.]
Could be an almond tree in bloom, not sure however.
An almond tree does not have that amount of blossoms. I guess that these trees produce a lot of pollen.
I think it was naive of the Minister to allow these major contractors to arrange the decoration of his flat. Nowhere on the JPM brothers website did their company ever offer flat decoration services. It only detailed the huge 200 unit plus developments. These were big time developers doing major projects and redecorating flats was not their business. They put together the finance, got the sites, got the planning permission and did the deals.
Ministers and magistrates have to be careful about all of their associations and business dealings, and it would have been perfectly simple for the minister to find a small decorating contractor directly who had no dealings with MEPA, banks or the government.
The answer for a dynamic journalist would be to find out how many other single flats JPM redecorated over the last few years for other people. If this is their normal business for a firm with turnover of tens of million then there must be dozens of them. However, if this is the only redecoration they ever arranged it certainly looks strange.
[Daphne – To you, perhaps. It doesn’t look in the least bit strange to me. If this is Tonio Fenech’s worst crime, then allellujiah. Malta Today’s Saviour Balzan pursues him for one reason only, the same reason he can’t stand the prime minister: he took John Dalli’s place. He is IN John Dalli’s place. Malta Today would be better off sniffing around Dalli’s business interests and giving us a couple of reports on those, even if it means catching the occasional flight to Libya.]
Look, I agree the trees are lovely and that the minister is a nice guy and an innocent, but he needs to be more careful. Developers on the other hand are not innocent types and will try to get whatever influence they can to get the plot they want, the planning permission they need, and the loan they need. They decorated his flat in case it might be useful to them even if he promised no favour in return.
If a magistrate got a major developer who does not normally has nothing to do with redecorating single flats to arrange for hers to be upgraded, would that look strange or is that OK?
Could she invite the developers to her parties and put it on Facebook? I’m just looking for a universal set of weights and measures here for public figures.
[Daphne – The magistrate actually develops her own. That’s how she met Robert Musumeci. And magistrates and ministers are different sorts of animal. As the former chief justice pointed out, because members of the judiciary cannot be removed, they have to be even more careful in their behaviour, not less so. Ministers can be removed by their bosses and the electorate.]
People are interested whether FIMBANK is one of the banks involved, not how these entrapreneurs tried to entrap Tonio.
[Daphne – No. FIMBank is definitely not involved. A statement has been made already to that effect. The confusion arises because the chairman of Al Massaleh, partners of JP Montebello on the Mistra project, is also chairman of FIMBank.]
To tell you the truth, I don’t give a hoot what Tonio gets as long as he does his duty as a minister.
In Christmas time bank managers get really expensive ‘hampers’ delivered to their homes, so I wouldn’t be surprised if someone sends his hamper in the form of some service.
A police commissioner of the Labour years had his villa built for free, one hears.
[Daphne – That’s no excuse. Gifts to ministers and senior civil servants are completely out of order.]
In one company I used to work with we were told that a bottle of whisky is a gift, but a box of whisky bottles is corruption.
That rather depends on whether the bottles were full or not.