New head of Labour Party radio linked to Dalligate scandal

Clint Bajada, employee of British American Tobacco and now head of Labour radio, at a party mass meeting

The Labour Party has announced that “DJ Clint Bajada” has been made head of its radio station, taking over from Malta’s new ambassador to Belgium, Ray Azzopardi, who headed the station for 22 years since the day it was set up.

The press announcement told us that Bajada “has been with One throughout his career”.

No doubt. But that’s not all he’s been doing in his career. Clint Bajada works – or did, until recently – for British American Tobacco in Malta.

As Malta Today reported five months ago, but seems to have forgotten already:

Hammargren had been Swedish Match’s vice-president for global corporate affairs until 2007, but at the time of this meeting with Dalli he had been brought to Malta by British American Tobacco – which has a Maltese office together with Central Cigarettes – where he was head of harm reduction and smokeless tobacco like snus.

Clint Bajada, from BAT Malta, had called Zammit to have Dalli meet Hammargen, then also the president of ESTOC, the snus lobby. “I explained this to John and he told me that this is a hot issue because the Commission and, as far as I know, also Mr Dalli personally was against the tobacco in general. Until that moment I did not know anything about snus, this was a completely new issue for me,” Zammit told OLAF during his first interview of 4 July 2012.