Oh, give it a rest, Michael
I am watching Bondi+ and have just heard my childhood neighbour, Labour’s Michael Falzon, announce in dramatic tones that this George Farrugia/oil-buying business is “the biggest scandal ever in the history of our country”.
Oh, for God’s sake, Michael, give it a rest, will you. History is a long, long time – at least a thousand years in Malta. It’s a bit rich putting a scam like this right there at the top of everything else that’s happened in a millennium.
But if we’re talking politics post 1970, then your statement is absurd and offensive. As somebody who lived through 16 years of socialist hell (1971 to 1987), with people shot dead and robber baron Lorry Sant controlling Mintoff by means of an envelope full of compromising photographs, and institutionalised corruption at shocking levels, I think you are ridiculous to say that.
But I expect nothing better. You grew up in a family of committed Mintoffjani, and the least you could do is be honest about the way you got to grow up in a smart house in a smart Stella Maris parish street in the days of requisition orders.
And once you’ve done that, then be honest about how you got your job at the bank in the Golden Years, the job you still have today.
And once that is done, have the decency to admit to yourself, if not to others, how much better your life is today than it was in the Golden Years of Labour – as, indeed, it is for us all.
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Dazgur. He’s milking it for all it’s worth.
Michael Falzon thinks that he can keep his skeletons in the cupboard and instead air somebody’s else’s.
They were so sure they had the cat in the bag but quite forgot that “il-poplu jiggudika” is not so stupid after all, and the famous emails are an insult to intelligent Maltese and to professional forgery.
I can’t imagine what kind of passports they would have come up with during the Nazi regime.
Someone should remind him that his BOV office in Valletta is stolen private property and his employer will someday have to pay it back. Le,le, Labour was all about one scandal after another.
If we had to apply the same measure, it would have been two scandals a day during Labour’s time.
Mentioning the word ‘scandal’ during Labour years was nothing much, because after years of extremes, nobody was much scandalised anymore.
Not to mention other interests stolen from other people depending on who wanted them. Whether these were business interests or land. Let’s start with Mintoff, who didn’t even own the land his house is on ( Did Yana current Labour champion of “poverty” etc. inherit this?), to Patrick Holland’s deep corruption and who, because he is dead perhaps, is never mentioned. Have they forgotten that Holland & Co required 5 – 10% of value for licenses to be issued? But that the trade stamp was duplicated and that certain privileged importers had free use of this from their personal office. Shall we calculate 5 – 10% of imports over the MLP 3 terms? There was not one aspect of MLP governance, or lack of it, that was not deeply impregnated with corruption.
I wonder how many people will again be forced, by some psychological exertion of pressure – direct or down the Labour ladder, to sign off assets or how commerce and industry will again be run IF we are condemned to find MLP back on the stand again.
Don’t forget the current reference to boost the standby forces.
Don’t forget the additional roles the Dejma was given to reinforce the MLP Government’s corruption.
One by one they are proving that the Labour Party always was. is and ever shall be rotten to the core.
There, but for the grace of God, goes Michael Falzon!
He should be ashamed to even talk about scandals, him being one of the beneficiaries of scandals and corruption.
He was close enough to know the stories behind Bical, National Bank and Mid-Med.
The BOV is a nest for notorious Mintoffjani placed there for a guaranteed job for life, surely for services rendered to the MLP.
Truly, no book should be judged by its cover. Michael Falzon is a prime example.
Imagine Austin Gatt entering Ghadira Bay with a yacht full of contraband. And imagine Austin Gatt defending himself by saying that he did not know that he should have gone through Customs.
Imagine Austin Gatt’s sister-in-law boasting that she had all the tuna she needed (when tuna was a luxury like caviar) and selling cans at a factory in Bulebel. What would our dear and honest Michael say?
Not to mention Mintoff’s direct purchasing of Malta’s oil from Gaddafi & Co.
That guy really knew what Swiss accounts were.
We even had a Minister under Mintoff- who is still very active today – who had a house within a house: one the official “nothing classy I’m Labour,” and, carefully concealed, its opposite the Garden of Eden where common eyes did not pry.
Houses purchased in cash in the name of a privileged son-in-law who was into, amongst other things, tender split-up between contractors before these were published.
Let’s proceed to the no drill pact with Gaddafi and the funds from the sale to Italy of the resultant free oil gifts?
Shouldn’t we be asking Yana about Mintoff’s Swiss bank accounts and about how the funds pilfered off the backs of the Maltese could greatly contribute to Maltese society, interest and all, at any time? And not because poverty is rampant, but because it’s ours? Little wonder that poverty is her storyline, comparatively.
We knew about such things because we have always valued information, especially in a volatile economic climate at the time then, when risk and decisions needed to be ultra- flexible at immediate notice to take into account the madness of its rulers. Forward planning was a luxury in itself.
Anyone remember the time when certain businessmen producers were called into Castille by Mintoff one evening, advised one hour beforehand, for a meeting at the time when the boycott on television advertising was really hurting them? Mintoff proceeded to threaten those present that if advertising was not resumed forthwith, they would have their electricity and water supplies cut off on the morrow.
Why was there a boycott on? because Xandir Malta/ TVM etc. was broadcasting on the same lines and exactly as Super One is now, but most people, especially the much-effected business community, was no longer blind to the madness of the MLP and refused to accept it.
To my perspective, absolutely nothing has changed, but to add insult to injury, they champion within their fold non other than an ace criminal lawyer (ace being a qualification of profession not character).
Dawn liljuni tar-rebha. Dejjem iddahaq in-nies bik, Mike. Mhux ahjar tmur ghall-kacca forsi taqbad xi haga protetta bil-ligi?