Commissioner Guy’s political career goes back 45 years, not 30
Times of Malta, yesterday’s edition:
“Mr Vella, whose political career stretches back for more than three decades…”
Karmenu Vella entered party politics, working as a Labour activist and becoming Dom Mintoff’s special protege, in the late 1960s when he was in his teens.
He was so much a favourite of Mintoff, and so very involved with the Labour Party, that when Barclays Bank in Malta was nationalised and became Mid-Med Bank under Mintoff’s direction, Karmenu Vella was appointed director of the board. It was 1973 and he was just 23 and an architect.
The following year, 1974 (when he was just 24), he was made MANAGING DIRECTOR of the Libyan Arab Maltese Holding Company, the two-state (Libya and Malta) vehicle which ploughed Gaddafi-mandated money, under agreement with Prime Minister Mintoff, into Malta projects.
I repeat that he was 24, and fresh out of university as an architect. He was there because he was, quite literally one sometimes suspects, the prime minister’s pet.
Karmenu Vella with Dom Mintoff in the 1970s. Just to give you some idea of how long ago this was, the man on the far right is ex Valletta footballer Carlo Seychell, now a wizened and white-haired old man.
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Mintoff liked his male pets:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20120824/opinion/The-Mintoff-that-I-hugged.434157
Before or after he fell off his horse?
That makes for some scary reading.
“He asked me if I liked to swim and walk. The next day we went on our first swimming trip. On that occasion, he warned me that I had to be careful. If I were to become his friend, I would become a political target. “I’ve always wanted to be your friend,” I said. “I choose friendship.””
It reads like a biology practical with Vince Taliana.
There’s village people, then there’s boat people.
Don’t worry about il-Guy. He won’t make the grilling. They’ll roast him on the basis of his past history.
He was Dom’s winger.
Karmenu Vella continued to reap the benefits of being a director of the Libyan Arab Maltese Holding Company long after that.
Alfred Pisani’s Corinthia benefitted greatly thanks to his friendship with Mintoff and Libya made an investment of some $3million dollars in Corinthia in the ’70s.
Fast forward to the new millenium and Karmenu Vella was appointed chairman of Corinthia Hotels International when he was on the Opposition benches at a handsome salary. A position he held for years.
Pisani’s other choice of politician from the “other party” who he engaged when the PN was in Opposition was John Dalli and he remained close to the company even as EU Commissioner.
He certainly knows how to choose them.
It makes one wonder how macho they look.
The “Golden Years,” a term actually attributable to il-Guy, refers precisely to the period of circa 15 years between 45 and 30 years ago.