Twanny Bronka: he had bought Borg Olivier’s desk for more than his declared annual income
Twanny Bronka, the Minister for Gozo, had bought George Borg Olivier’s desk at auction three and a half years ago for Eur25,000.
The Times reported on 28 June 2010:
George Borg Olivier’s personal desk was sold to Labour MP Anton Refalo yesterday when he submitted the €25,000 winning bid at an auction which saw off an impressive collection belonging to the Independence-era Nationalist Prime Minister.
Twanny Bronka is very keen on antiques and auction sales.
For years he used to be accompanied to viewings and auctions by Magistrate Consuelo Herrera, who had struck up an intense and intensely useful friendship with him during the period when she sat in judgement at the Gozo courts.
Borg Olivier’s desk has met a most unsuitable end and come down in the world from its smart home on Sliema’s Victoria Avenue to Twanny Bronka’s Neapolitan-fixer-style home in Gozo. But that’s life. Sic transit gloria mundi and all that.
The real issue is: how could the man afford it, when he and his wife earn only Eur45,000 between them and they have a Eur830,000 loan to service?
Perhaps he used some of the loan to buy the desk because he just had to have it?
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http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20100628/local/george-borg-oliviers-desk-crosses-the-political-divide.315126#.UptEnb41gdU
Ehhh ragel bil-ghaqal dan Twanny l-Bronka. Is-sold jaghmlu tnejn. Ma nafx kif m’ghamlux lilu Ministru tal-Finanzi.
Le, Joseph ghamlu Ministru ghal-Finanzi Privati.
Nahseb inkwetat issa ghax se jkollu jibda jiddikjara il-kiri tal-flats. Hekk qalilna Joseph Muscat.
That’s easy, you bid, then pay, if at all.
He’s become something of a joke in the business, at least with those who can close both eyes. Not too long before someone grumbles at this special treatment however.
Even because whenever he’s at an auction everyone else makes it a point not to bid, not with our minister throwing silly money at everything.
Thankfully, his taste tends to the morbid.
Maybe Bronka will now buy Mintoff’s old Mercedes: opening bid is 20,000 euros.
As amusing as the tone of the article might be, seeing such institutionalised corruption winds me up. In Malta, corruption is endemic, but PL take it to another level,
The corrupt mentality of everything goes, everything is defensible.