Brass-necked Silvio Schembri gets to work on the semantics

Silvio and Deandra Schembri at their wedding a couple of years ago, with the Labour leader.

Silvio Schembri has sued the Nationalist Party for libel for repeatedly exposing the fact that he and his wife Deandra are grabbing what they can.

These people never cease to amaze me in the way they dish it out but then can’t take it. The man stood on the Super One Party ticket, for heaven’s sake.

“Il-mara ta’ Schembri, li hija Avukat, għandha impjieg wieħed u li mhux mal-Gvern. Hi kienet daħlet wara interview b’sejħa mill-ETC.”

That’s from the press release his lawyers circulated to the media today.

Yes, it’s true that Mrs Silvio Schembri has one job – it’s a job she got while in her third trimester of pregnancy, and it’s at the Malta Financial Services Authority. Schembri has the sheer audacity to say that the job she’s been given (except that he doesn’t say she’s been given it) is with a state regulatory authority rather than the government.

He also has the nerve to claim that she got the job through the Employment and Training Centre after an open call and interview – well, just like Lara Boffa got her job as the Malta Council for Science and Technology chairman’s PA and PR, then.

And just like that Aleks Wotsit, who edited one of the General Workers Union newspapers, got his job in PR and Communications at that nest of decrepit Mintoffian sloths led by Mario Vella, Malta Enterprise.

The ETC is being used as a recruitment centre for Taghna Lkoll. They put themselves on that list you go on when you’re not out of work but looking for something different. Then jobs at state organisations and regulatory authorities are created for them, and because these entities are obliged to first try recruiting through the ETC, jobs are organised for the party pets in what appears to be a legitimate fashion but isn’t.

Or perhaps the Malta Financial Services Authority really needed another desk officer and Mrs Silvio Schembri, who was working as a lawyer in court when I last looked but perhaps found it too taxing and the income too unreliable, was the only suitable candidate even at eight months pregnant.

Yes, just like the editor of It-Torca was the only suitable candidate for the communications role at Malta Enterprise, so wasn’t it lucky that he just so happened to be on the ETC ‘Just Looking’ list when Malta Enterprise woke up and discovered it really needed a communications person.

And Lara Boffa – she was interviewed for the Science Council job off the ETC list, and we found out later that she’d already been seeing the chairman at the time. What a corrupt and shady bunch.

But back to Mrs Silvio Schembri. She hasn’t got three jobs with the government. No, she’s got one job with a state regulatory authority and has been appointed to two state boards. The latter are not a source of income but they’re rather good for your CV when you’re just 28.