The tale of the backbench MP and the army helicopter: you just have to read this story in Times of Malta
Lies, lies and more lies – they’re getting tangled up in them now.
It turns out that Justyne Caruana DIDN’T have to rush back to the Marseilles conference to present two reports, as the Office of the Prime Minister told us.
She had only one report to present, and that was done in her absence on Monday.
Nor was her flight in the early morning on Tuesday, but it was the afternoon flight to Brussels, which leaves at around 4pm.
This means she had ample time to get to the airport, even if she slept in Gozo on Monday night.
But still they sent her a helicopter so that she wouldn’t have to bust a gut. The reason they are giving now is that they bought her ticket “late on Tuesday morning” so she wouldn’t have made it.
What utter tosh. You don’t have to wait until your ticket is bought for you before you start making your way to the airport. If you know you have to get that flight and that somebody else is sorting the tickets, you get in your car and drive there in good time, not wait until you ‘receive the call that the ticket has been bought’ and then start thinking about getting to the airport.
Liars, what liars.
Maybe they think the army helicopter is a taxi service for backbenchers with a sense of entitlement li qatt ma raw xejn. Even more disgusting, Malta Today is now serving as a government apologist on the matter and instead of running a story investigating why government backbenchers are using an army helicopter as their private taxi, it has run one telling us how many times Lawrence Gonzi used it when he was prime minister.
This when the rules say that the army helicopter can be used, outside its normal service, only by the prime minister and the president – it’s Malta’s Air Force One, if you like.
Yet because the Office of the Prime Minister (that would be Corto Farrugia) thought it ever so logical and rational to justify the abusive use of an army helicopter by an ordinary backbencher, Malta Today picked up the lead, went On Message and did likewise, expanding on the story.
So now Justyne Caruana the backbencher is equal to the prime minister and the president. What a nerve.
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http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140124/local/New-reason-given-for-MP-s-ride-in-an-army-helicopter.503860#.UuItvPs1gdV
Gvern jinten. Kif kienet qalet Justyne “Mur xhommu.”
Some are more equal than others, and if Malta Today subscribes to this maxim, so be it. Malta may be “taghna lkoll” but Labour Party members are more entitled to this privilege than the rest of us. Lies are also permissible to entrench this privilege.
“Lies are also permissible to entrench this privilege”. You will find that on page one of the new book about ethics that students will start using next September.
Here is another blatant lie. The only way the Opposition could push for a discussion on the citizenship scheme last Monday was by presenting a motion citing Clause 13 of the Standing Orders.
This allows for the suspension of the agenda for the House to discuss “urgent matters of national interest”.
This provides for a debate which should be concluded on the same day and with NO VOTE TAKEN.
So the Office of the Prime Minister’s excuse for bringing Justyne from Marseille (which was subsequently followed by the helicopter saga) is totally false. There was never going to be a vote, and they knew it.
Why assume that they knew it. They are incompetents.
Malta-star-Today is just the printed English edition of L-Orizzont. No other way to describe it.
Saviour Balzan has been serving the PL since J Dalli BA lost the election in the PN leadership.
The report she was supposed to present is about the Middle East.
Charlatan spongers from Gozo must be terribly au fait with Middle Eastern affairs.
Same old story. ANYTHING YOU CAN DO I CAN DO BETTER. And people thought they would change.
Kien hemm min hasibha biljunarja Ghawdxija malli waslet bil ‘private’ helicopter.
Some months ago she was complaining on Facebook because she had missed the ferry and as she is not privileged it wasn’t turned back.
Perhaps this time they wanted her to feel special.
She got the helicopter while Twanny Bronka had to make do with the usual ferry.
The Times reported “the tickets were sent to her late on Tuesday morning”. Even this has been written with a clear intent to deceive because it was said to make it appear that we are still living 30 years ago when tickets used to be issued in hard copy format.
We all know that nowadays you do not even NEED a ticket. You present your passport or identity card and you’re checked in.
Come on, for God’s sake. What do they take us for? Idiots?
I print out the ticket itinerary just for posterity. Nobody ever asked me to present it in the past five years or so. What a ruddy cheek.
Lying is the only thing they do professionally. In everything else they’re slipshod, inept, incompetent, downright corrupt, or all four.
I would certainly go for “all four”.
Well, Labour’s elves believe every single blatant lie the party bosses dish out to them. Then they parrot those lies on Facebook, like good boys and girls.
We can only hope that people with brains who were taken in by the electoral hype would feel their intelligence insulted, like the rest of us.
[Daphne – People with brains were not taken in by the electoral hype. It is this which worries me: that it is a lot easier to admit that you were taken in, than to conclude on that basis that there is something deficient in your powers of analysis. People have HUGE inbuilt resistance to facing facts about their own personal shortcomings. They build up Teflon barriers to the absorption of any information which tells them something about themselves that they don’t like. They will keep telling themselves that they made the right decision in voting this lot into power, and will keep finding reasons why they were right.]
I totally agree with you. I must have expressed myself incorrectly, or perhaps was trying to be kind.
What I meant to refer to are the ones who are not entirely fooled by anything and everything the Labour media dishes out to them and take it as gospel truth because they were brainwashed since birth.
Yet another documented case of sheer arrogance and abuse by an amoral, lying and hypocritical government.
In the age of electronic tickets, when no printed document is required, what bull of an excuse to give.
They tried to camouflage the irregularity by opting for the Gozo hospital helipad but got caught out with their pants down nevertheless. Well done, Times of Malta.
And Privitera is there, as usual, harping on about how often Gonzi used the ruddy helicopter during his time as Premier.
1) Gonzi was entitled to use it as the Prime Minister of Malta;
2) even if this was an abuse of power, which it was not, another abuse of power does not justify the first.
Issa mohhi mistrieh li m’ghandiex ghalfejn inqum aktar kmieni biex naqbad il-vapur tas-6am, biex nilhaq l-ajruplan tal-AirMalta tat-8.35am ghal Ruma. Kemm incempel helicopter tal-armata. Almenu nispera li anke l-helicopter TAGHNA LKOLL.
Ma tiflahx tisma l-gideb taghhom. Tal-anqas Dr Gonzi kien prim ministru meta kien juza l-helicopter, mhux bhal Justyne deputat.
The more I read, the more I realise that these people have no understanding of working at a private corporation in the present day with its economic drawbacks.
Because otherwise they would not act like a bunch of spoilt brats demanding everything as a right because the others had /did something similar in the past.
Management of time and resources is a basic pre requisite of professionals today. You either have it or you don’t.
If Gonzi was abusing his power and position in using the helicopter, how come the Labour Opposition never raised the issue and screamed scandal?
If one of the PN ministers was seen having a coffee within five metres of a contractor or businessman, the story would have been broadcast daily for at least a year.
“So now Justyne Caruana the backbencher is equal to the prime minister and the president. What a nerve.”
Exactly what I thought when I read the report. I can’t recommend your blog enough.
Jista’ jkun li trid li tkun ittrattata ahjar minn Anton Refalo? Jista’ jkun li ghandha ghira bazwija ghalih, peress li hu lahaq ministru u hi baqghet deputat ?
Excellent, the Police force has been reduced to glorified waiters, whereas the Army has been reduced to taxi drivers.
What a ‘change’.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-9-Te-DPbSE
Since she could not call ‘ix-Xitan’ in order to provide her with a personalized ferry service, she had no option left but to call the Archangel Gabriel in order to be lifted up on the wings of an angel,
So according to the OPM, they flew someone by helicopter from Gozo to the airport, then by plane to Marseilles to hand over a rental agreement for premises in Spinola, St. Julian’s. Talk about efficiency.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20140124/local/use-of-afm-helicopter-to-ferry-mp-abuse-of-power-pn.503968#.UuLT0rA1gdU
All the blatant lies and truth-twisting make me think that Justyne Caruana did not really have to go back to Marseilles … or to come back to Malta from Marseilles and go back again.
Dr Gonzi was entitled to use the helicopter; he was the prime minister and its use outside normal army service is reserved for the prime minister and the president.
Joseph Muscat and George Abela, in their official roles, are entitled to use it. Justyne Caruana the backbencher is not.
That is about the sum of it.
Now that it is in power, Labour has taken off its mask and what is underneath is unremittingly ugly.
I hope she does not try to break Gonzi’s record of using this service.
Oh, I see that the exact same ignorant comments ave found their way here from Facebook.
S. Attard, please read Daphne’s post in full and don’t just comment without reading.
You will then learn that according to the rules, the army helicopter can be used, outside its normal army-related services, only by the Prime Minister and the President.
Furthermore, please read the article in Times of Malta just to inform yourself that there was absolutely no reason for the helicopter to be used for Justyne Caruana to carry out her ‘government’ business.
I will not go further and mention all the lies being told. I have a feeling that I will be wasting my time.
This is the banana republic mentality at work.
@La Redoute
“Lying is the only thing they do professionally.”
I think I have to disagree what this statement. Professional liars are the ones who don’t get found out.
We are in 2014 and to fly from one country to another or better still from one airport to another you do not even need a paper ticket. One can just make a reservation and have an e-ticket, ready at check in.
Can we not notice that all these ‘fiascos’, one after the other, are being made because of all the blue-eyed boys who were made ‘consultants’ and also because of all the good people they transferred out of ministries?
The incompetence of these so-called consultants earning thousands is coming to the fore.